Continuity/ Change over Time Essay. Dominating throughout almost the whole region of Eurasia, the Mongols influenced their territories on all levels.
Darya Barshak PD 5 12/09/2011
Continuity/ Change over Time Essay
The interaction between nomadic and settled peoples has always influenced the world history. However, even given this fact, it would be extremely hard for one to imagine that a small nomadic tribe from Mongolia could establish the largest empire ever. Dominating throughout almost the whole region of Eurasia, the Mongols influenced their territories on all levels. Even though the Mongolian Empire constantly expanded conquering all kinds of different territories in a frame from 1206 to1368, it had many more significant political and cultural continuations than changes, continuations lasting even till this day.
The cultural and political aspects of the Mongolian Empire underwent a few changes. Mongolians began as nomadic horseman, who traveled light and quick. Over time, however, the Mongols began settling in their conquered lands and abandoning their kinsmen. Mongols lived under localism by accepting local culture and identity, local production and consumption of goods, and local control of government. For instance, the Yuan dynasty was established by Mongols. Kublai Khan (grandson of Genghis Khan) became the first Yuan emperor in 1271.The Mongol followers progressively adopted Chinese culture and customs; in the middle of the dynasty (in 1250s), they were already indistinguishable from Chinese in terms of cultural behavior. Mongols brought some political changes into the territories their conquered. For example, the Mongols swept through Russia all the way to Kiev (at the time one of the most important cities in Russia). They viciously destroyed many important cities such as Novgorod and ruled over a split Russia (3 parts). Mongols kept Russia isolated for over 3 centuries, and this significantly delayed Russian development. Nowadays, Mongolian culture can still be sensed in Russia. There is barely any museum in Russia that wouldn’t contain a piece of Mongolian art. The most famous Russian museum, Tretyakov State Gallery in Moscow, contains a famous portrait of common Mongolian man drawn by an unknown artist. The clothes that many tsars wore were patterned in Mongol style. Even Peter the Great’s most famous portrait in St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts displays him in a dress of this sort of style. Perhaps if Mongols’ fleets were not mostly destroyed, they would have brought changes to Japan as well. The Mongols would have eventually done a lot of damage to large areas of Japan causing the delay in progress, but would have also shared their culture.