page_title: Golden Horde
section_title: Great Horde (1459–1502)
hierarchical_section_title: Golden Horde / Disintegration / Great Horde (1459–1502)
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Стояние на Угре. 1480 г. Миниатюра из Лицевого летописного свода. XVI век. «А наши стрелами и пищалми многих побиша, а их стрелы межы наших падаху, и никогож уязвляху и отбиша их от берегу». English: Standing on the Ugra river. 1480. Miniature in Russian chronicle. XVI century. ‘And our men had beaten many foes with arrows and muskets, and their arrows had fallen between our men, and had nobody hurting, and had repelling them off the shore’.
context_page_description: The Golden Horde
  or Ulug Ulus - lit. “Great State” in Turkic was originally a Mongol and later Turkicized khanate established in the 13th century and originating as the northwestern sector of the Mongol Empire. With the fragmentation of the Mongol Empire after 1259 it became a functionally separate khanate. It is also known as the Kipchak Khanate or as the Ulus of Jochi.
  After the death of Batu Khan in 1255, his dynasty flourished for a full century, until 1359, though the intrigues of Nogai instigated a partial civil war in the late 1290s. The Horde's military power peaked during the reign of Uzbeg Khan, who adopted Islam. The territory of the Golden Horde at its peak included most of Eastern Europe from the Urals to the Danube River, and extended east deep into Siberia. In the south, the Golden Horde's lands bordered on the Black Sea, the Caucasus Mountains, and the territories of the Mongol dynasty known as the Ilkhanate.
  The khanate experienced violent internal political disorder beginning in 1359, before it briefly reunited under Tokhtamysh.
context_section_description: In 1435, the khan Küchük Muhammad ousted Sayid Ahmad. He attacked Ryazan and suffered a major defeat against the forces of Vasily II. Sayid Ahmad continued to raid Muscovy and in 1449 made a direct attack on Moscow. However he was defeated by Muscovy's ally Qasim Khan. In 1450, Küchük Muhammad attacked Ryazan but was turned back by a combined Russo-Tatar army. In 1451, Sayid Ahmad tried to take Moscow again and failed.
  Küchük Muhammad was succeeded by his son Mahmud bin Küchük in 1459, from which point on the Golden Horde came to be known as the Great Horde. Mahmud was succeeded by his brother Ahmed Khan bin Küchük in 1465. In 1469, Ahmed attacked and killed the Uzbek Abu'l-Khayr Khan. In the summer of 1470, Ahmed organized an attack against Moldavia, the Kingdom of Poland, and Lithuania. By August 20, the Moldavian forces under Stephen the Great defeated the Tatars at the battle of Lipnic. In 1474 and 1476, Ahmed insisted that Ivan III of Russia recognize the khan as his overlord. In 1480, Ahmed organized a military campaign against Moscow, resulting in a face off between two opposing armies known as the Great Stand on the Ugra River. Ahmed judged the conditions unfavorable and retreated. This incident formally ended the "Tatar Yoke" over Rus' lands. On 6 January 1481, Ahmed was killed by Ibak Khan, the prince of the Khanate of Sibir, and Nogays at the mouth of the Donets River.
  Ahmed's sons were unable to maintain the Great Horde. They attacked the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (which possessed much of the Ukraine at the time) in 1487–1491 and reached as far as Lublin in eastern Poland before being decisively beaten at Zaslavl.
  The Crimean Khanate, which had become a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire in 1475, subjugated what remained of the Great Horde, sacking Sarai in 1502. After seeking refuge in Lithuania, Sheikh Ahmed, last Khan of the Horde, died in prison in Kaunas some time after 1504. According to other sources, he was released from the Lithuanian prison in 1527.
  Records of Golden Horde existence reach however as far as end of 18th century and it was mentioned in works of Russian publisher Nikolay Novikov in his work of 1773 "Ancient Russian Hydrography".
caption: The Great stand on the Ugra river, 1480
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