THE MONGOL FACTOR IN THE RELATIONS OF THE VOLYN PRINCE AND REX DANYLO ROMANOVYCH WITH THE APOSTOLIC SEE (LATE 40S – FIRST HALF OF THE 60S OF THE 13TH CENTURY)

Abstract

In the middle of the 13th century, as a result of a powerful military campaign, often referred to in historical literature as the Western invasion of Mongol troops to Eastern and Central Europe (1236–1242), the then Old World underwent dramatic changes in development. One of these new phenomena was the establishment of interaction between the two supranational structures of Eurasia. The first of these was a political and spiritual-religious formation, namely the Roman Curia or Apostolic See, which, as of the aforementioned period, had not only controlled spiritual and religious life in Western Europe for centuries, but also sought to extend its influence eastwards to Orthodox countries and pagan nations. The most important manifestation of this process was the Crusader movement, especially military and political actions in the Middle East, the formation of crusader states there, and later the spread of military missionary campaigns to the Baltic countries.

The second supra-ethnic formation was the Mongol Empire, which was created in the first third of the 13th century by the commander Genghis Khan and later expanded to vast areas of Eurasia by the great ruler’s descendants. As a result of military, political, economic, cultural and religious processes, the regions over which the Mongols extended their influence created a specific civilisational environment – the Mongol world. It is clear that since the middle of the 13th century there are grounds to assert the existence of interaction between two different civilisational systems, and numerous states, countries and peoples of the Eurasian mainland played a role in this process of interaction.

The purpose of the proposed article is to consider the participation of Prince and Rex Danylo Romanovych’s Volyn Principality in relations with the Apostolic See at the time of the great civilisational turning point in the life of medieval humanity, to analyse the impact of the Mongol factor on these relations, primarily the Horde formation of the conquerors in the lower reaches of the Volga and Don.