[ Based upon _A History of Russia_ (Nicholas Rasianovsky) ]

The city of Novgorod was one of the cities under the loose overall rule
of the Grand Prince in Kiev, during the "Kievan Period", which lasted
until about the first quarter of the thirteenth century.

Culture of Kievan Russia was heavily influenced by Byzantium, rather
than Rome. It was relatively enlightened, with a prominent Church, an
involvement in the international politics of the Byzantine Empire,
and a network of towns which had strong local governments. However,
the Kievan peace was continually threatened both by internal politicking,
and by foreign threats. Wars in Russia were not the small-scale affairs
common in medieval Europe; they usually involved mass forces and widespread
destruction.

In the year 1223, the Mongols -- or Tatars, as the Russians called them --
appeared rather suddenly, and proceeded to smash the Russians and the
Polovtsky in a battle near the river Kalka, only to vanish into the steppe.
But they returned to conquer Russia, in 1237-1240.  (As points of reference,
Genghis Khan died in 1227, and Kublai Khan became Great Khan in 1259.)

Against the invading hordes, the Russian Princes proved to be both
disunited and unprepared. Most of them preferred to stay and protect
their own appanages (holdings), rather than protect neighboring
principalities; thus, the Tatars were able to conquer piecemeal,
leaving the princes to repeat a sequence of desperate fighting
and massacre. The Tatars also managed to conduct the only successful
winter invasion in Russian history; their cavalry was capable of
moving with great speed on the frozen Russian rivers.

By 1242, the Tatars were able to take Kiev, seat of the Grand Prince,
by storm; they exterminated the population, and levelled the city.
The same fate befell other towns of the area, whose inhabitants either
died or became slaves. A quote from Archbishop Piano Carpini, writing
three years after the levelling of Kiev, rather vividly describes the
extent of the destruction.

	... they besieged Kieve which had been the capital of Russia,
	and after a long siege they took it and killed the inhabitants
	of the city; for this reason, when we passed through that land,
	we found lying in the field countless heads and bones of dead
	people; for this city had been extremely large and very populous,
	whereas now it has been reduced to nothing: barely two hundred
	houses stand there, and those people are held in the harshest
	slavery.

After Kiev, the Tatars swept through the southwestern principalities
of Galicia and Volynia, laying everything waste. Continuing on, they
took Poland and Hungary, and, moving on, their advance guard reached
the Adriatic.

It was at this time that the Great Khan Ugedey (third son of Genghis
Khan) died, and his nephew Batu, concerned with internal politics,
decided to retrench; in the spring of 1242 he withdrew his armies
to the southern steppe, subjugating Bulgaria, Moldavia, and Wallachia
on his way back. Thus, although northerwestern Russia, including the
city of Novgorod, was spared direct conquest, the entire region
remained very much under Mongol sway.

Batu established his headquarters in the lower Volga area, in what
became the town of Old Sarai and the capital of the domain known as
the Golden Horde. The Tatars did not really interfere with Russian
life after the conquest, but instead, simply collected tribute through
the Princes.

The occupation of the southern steppes contributed to a shift of
population, economic activity, and political power to the northeast.
It also did much to cut Russia off from Byzantium, and in part, from
the West. The exaction of the tribute laid a heavy burden on the
Russians precisely when their impoverished and dislocated economy
was least prepared to bear it. The entire period, and especially
the decades directly following the Mongol invasion, acquired the
character of a grim struggle for survival, with the advanced and
elaborate Kievan style of life and ethical and cultural standards
in rapid decline.