Russo-Kazan Wars

Volga basin showing Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan

Before it separated from the Golden Horde, the Kazan region was part of Volga Bulgaria (c. 630–1240) and then the Bulgar Ulus of the Golden Horde (c. 1240–1438). They adopted Islam in 921, 67 years before Russia became Christian. The boundary between Muscovy and Kazan was near Nizhny Novgorod, about half way between the two cities. The land east of Nizhny Novgorod was fairly difficult. When the Tatars attacked they would first hit Nizhny Novgorod and then move on Murom, Ryazan, and other places, only twice approaching Moscow. When the Russians attacked they would usually send two armies, one down the Volga and one over land. As Muscovy grew stronger, fighting shifted eastward. Before 1552 the Russians made no attempt to conquer Kazan and contented themselves with maintaining a pro-Russian khan. A pro-Russian khan meant peace and an anti-Russian khan meant independence and war. Kazan never established a stable dynasty. Pro-Russian khans often came from the Qasim Khanate while anti-Russian khans were brought in from Crimea and other khanates. There were usually pro- and anti-Russian factions, but they seem to have been temporary and unstable.

In 1437, the khan of Kazan, Ulugh Muhammad, defeated Muscovite troops in the Battle of Belyov. In 1439, Ulugh advanced on Moscow with a large army. Vasily II of Moscow fled from his capital across the Volga River. Tatars devastated the outskirts of Moscow for 10 days and on their way back to Kazan burned Kolomna; they also took many captives.[1]

The campaign of 1445 was disastrous for Muscovy and had major repercussions in Russian politics. Hostilities broke out when Khan Maxmut took the strategic fortress of Nizhny Novgorod and invaded Muscovy. Vasily II mustered an army and defeated the Tatars near Murom and Gorokhovets. Thinking the war over, he disbanded his forces and returned to Moscow in triumph, only to learn that the Tatars had besieged Nizhny Novgorod again.

A new army was mustered and marched towards Suzdal, where they met the Russian generals who had surrendered Nizhny to the enemy after setting the fortress on fire. On 6 June 1445, the Russians and the Tatars clashed in the Battle of Suzdal near the walls of St. Euphemius Monastery. The battle was a resounding success for the Tatars, who took Vasily II prisoner. It took four months and an enormous ransom to recover the monarch from captivity.[2]

A new massacre of Russian merchants and envoys residing in Kazan took place in 1521. Vasily III was so enraged that he forbade his subjects to visit the Kazan Fair again. Instead, the famous Makariev Fair was inaugurated downstream from Nizhny Novgorod, an establishment which undermined the economical prosperity of Kazan, thus contributing to its eventual downfall.

In 1524, Prince Ivan Belsky led the 150,000-strong Russian army against the Tatar capital. This campaign is described in detail by a foreign witness, Herberstein. Belsky's huge army spent 20 days encamped on an island opposite Kazan, awaiting the arrival of Russian cavalrymen. Then news came that part of the cavalry had been defeated, and the vessels loaded with provisions had been captured by the Tatars. Although the army suffered from hunger, Belsky at once laid siege to the city and soon the Tatars sent their envoys proposing terms. Belsky accepted them and speedily returned to Moscow.[5]

Prince Belsky returned to the walls of Kazan in July 1530. The khan had fortified his capital and built a new wall, yet the Russians set the city ablaze, massacring their rivals utterly (according to Russian chronicles) and causing their enemy, Safa Giray, to withdraw to Arsk. The Tatars sued for peace, promising to accept any khan appointed from Moscow. The tsar put Shahgali's younger brother, Canghali, on the throne. He was murdered by the anti-Russian faction in 1535.

Russian chronicles record about forty attacks of Kazan khans on the Russian territories (mainly the regions of Nizhniy Novgorod, Murom, Vyatka, Vladimir, Kostroma, Galich) in the first half of the 16th century. Half of Kazan raids occurred in the 1530s and 1540s. Besides 1521, most ruinous Kazan attacks occurred in 1522, 1533, 1537, 1538, 1539, 1540, and 1541.[6]

Ivan IV under the walls of Kazan

While Ivan IV was a minor, border skirmishes continued unabated, but the leaders of both powers were reluctant to commit their troops to open conflicts. In 1536, the Russians and Tatars were on the brink of a new war and met near Lyskovo, but the battle was averted. Over the following years, the Crimean khan constructed an offensive alliance with Safa Giray of Kazan, his relative. When Safa Giray invaded Muscovy in December 1540, the Russians used Qasim Tatars to contain him. After his advance was stalled near Murom, Safa Giray was forced to withdraw towards his own borders.

Russian troops departing for Kazan in 1545 (drawing from a contemporary manuscript).

These reverses undermined Safa Giray's authority in Kazan. A pro-Russian party, represented by Shahgali, gained enough popular support to usurp the throne more than once. In 1545, Ivan IV mounted an expedition to the Volga River, mainly in order to flex muscles and to show his support for pro-Russian factions. Little was achieved during the campaign of 1547-48 and the story was much the same for 1549-50.

In 1551, detailed schemes for the eventual conquest of Kazan started to be aired. The tsar sent his envoy to the Nogai Horde and they promised to maintain neutrality during the impending war. The Ar begs and Udmurts submitted to Russian authority as well. In 1551, the wooden fort of Sviyazhsk was transported down the Volga from Uglich all the way to Kazan. It was used as the Russian place d'armes during the decisive campaign of 1552.

On 16 June 1552 Ivan IV led a 150,000-strong Russian army from Moscow towards Kolomna. They routed the Crimean Tatars under Devlet Giray near Tula before turning to the east. The tsar pressed on towards Kazan, and the final siege of the Tatar capital commenced on 30 August. Under the supervision of Prince Alexander Gorbatyi-Shuisky, the Russians used ram weapons, a battery-tower, mines, and 150 cannons. The Russians had the advantage of efficient military engineers, such as Ivan Vyrodkov, Nemchin Erazm ("Rozmysl")[7] from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the English engineer Butler.[8] The besiegers blocked the city's water supply and breached the walls before the final storming on 2 October led to the taking of the city of Kazan, and the razing of its fortifications.[9]

The fall of Kazan had as its primary effect the assertion of Moscow's control over the Middle Volga. The Bashkirs accepted Ivan IV's authority two years later. The tsar celebrated his victory over Kazan by building several churches with oriental features, most famously Saint Basil's Cathedral on Red Square in Moscow. The siege of Kazan forms the subject of the longest poem in the Russian language, Mikhail Kheraskov's epic Rossiada (1771–1779).

After the fall of Kazan a guerrilla uprising known as the Kazan War started in the region, lasting several years until its final suppression in 1556. The Tsar responded with a policy of Christianization and Russification of his Tatar subjects and other indigenous peoples, an approach not reversed until the time of Catherine the Great (reigned 1762–1796).[10]

• List of Mongol and Tatar raids against Rus'

• Трофимов В. Поход на Казань, ее осада и взятие в 1552 г. Kazan, 1890.
• Коротов И.А. Иван Грозный. Военная деятельность. Moscow, 1952.
• Казанская история. Moscow-Leningrad, 1954.