Surviving and Modernized Golden Horde?

Zioneer

Banned
What PoD (or PoDs plural) would lead to a Golden Horde that not only survives longer, but survives to the present day, and modernizes to the level of OTL Russia?
 

Zioneer

Banned
Unless he is a direct descendant of Genghis Khan, this is highly unlikely.

Did the Mongol successor states have a rule requiring their ruler to be a direct descendant of Ghengis Khan?

Hmm... Then perhaps it could be a Merovingian-style situation, with the Khan being weak, and a Russian second-in-command being a Charles Martel figure.
 

Philip

Donor
Why not have both? Get a powerful Russian leader who was raised in Mongol culture and identifies with them to be placed on the throne of the Golden Horde?
Unless he is a direct decendent of Genghis Khan, this is highly unlikely.
How does this sound?

  1. Young Russian Prince A is sent to Golden Horde as hostage.
  2. He is married to Khan's daughter/niece/whatever as part of peace treaty.
  3. Russian Prince B starts riling up the Russians.
  4. Prince A leads GH army to bring Prince B back into line.
  5. Prince A is installed as Grand Prince.
  6. Prince C is son of Prince B and Khan's daughter.
  7. GH has succession dispute.
  8. Prince C asserts and defends a claim to the GH throne.
 

Zioneer

Banned
How does this sound?

  1. Young Russian Prince A is sent to Golden Horde as hostage.
  2. He is married to Khan's daughter/niece/whatever as part of peace treaty.
  3. Russian Prince B starts riling up the Russians.
  4. Prince A leads GH army to bring Prince B back into line.
  5. Prince A is installed as Grand Prince.
  6. Prince C is son of Prince A and Khan's daughter.
  7. GH has succession dispute.
  8. Prince C asserts and defends a claim to the GH throne.

Sounds good, I think Simeon of Moscow could work well with being Prince C, with his father Ivan I being Prince A. A coalition of the other Russian princes could serve as Prince B in this hypothetical scenario.
 
How does this sound?

  1. Young Russian Prince A is sent to Golden Horde as hostage.
  2. He is married to Khan's daughter/niece/whatever as part of peace treaty.
  3. Russian Prince B starts riling up the Russians.
  4. Prince A leads GH army to bring Prince B back into line.
  5. Prince A is installed as Grand Prince.
  6. Prince C is son of Prince B and Khan's daughter.
  7. GH has succession dispute.
  8. Prince C asserts and defends a claim to the GH throne.

So you're proposing a Slavic state with a few golden horde trappings? The population balance will tilt in the central Russians favour over time, and you'll have a situation just like China. Plus there are the religious issues with such a scheme.
 
Tinibeg Khan, whom succeeded Uzbeg Khan, survives for more than a year after his father dies and continues to rule so his brother and OTL successor, Janibeg, doesn't rule the Golden Horde instead. Also, one would have to curtail the growth of Muscovy under the leadership of Daniel I and Ivan I in the early 1300's, which was acting as the tax-collector of the other Rus principalities that were suborned to the Qipchak Khanate/Golden Horde.
 
So you're proposing a Slavic state with a few golden horde trappings? The population balance will tilt in the central Russians favour over time, and you'll have a situation just like China. Plus there are the religious issues with such a scheme.

Is it at all feasible for the Golden Horde to go Orthodox rather than Muslim?

Removing Timur probably helps: he gave the Horde quite a pounding. In the absence of the Timurid states, a Golden Horde that extends itself south and East into central Asia has a stronger settled, agricultural demographic base: pure steppe empires don't do well against early modern gunpowder empires on settled territory.

Now, if they can play divide-and-conquer among the Russian states, they can probably keep that flank secure for a while: Moscow didn't really take off OTL till the mid-1400s, when the Golden Horde had already partially disintegrated, losing Kazan and the Crimea by 1450 and by 1480, when Moscow defied Horde demands for their traditional tribute, Astrakhan also had broken off. A Horde-Novgorod alliance? Or a Horde-Novgorod-P+L alliance?

Of course, if we bump off Timur, the Ottomans are invading Italy or central Europe by the mid-1400s, and the butterflies are huge...

Bruce
 
Did the Mongol successor states have a rule requiring their ruler to be a direct descendant of Ghengis Khan?

Not exactly. The closer your relations to Genghis, the more credible you are.

Of course the claimant can always lie about it, like Timurlane. But a Russian prince with a penchant for horse archery and yak butter tea just wont do.
 
So you're proposing a Slavic state with a few golden horde trappings? The population balance will tilt in the central Russians favour over time, and you'll have a situation just like China. Plus there are the religious issues with such a scheme.

Is it at all feasible for the Golden Horde to go Orthodox rather than Muslim?

Well, the Golden Horde was pagan for quite a long time-it didn't convert until the reign of Uzbek Khan, so having the POD be at or before then would probably help a lot. For one thing, under Islamic law its illegal for a Muslim woman to marry a Christian man.

I have a TL with a surviving Golden Horde, though I made it into a bit of a wank (they took as much land in Europe as the Russian Empire at is peak did) and haven't updated it in forever. If I return to the concept, I'll start over and make it less wanky.
 
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