ALMATY – For centuries, the history of the Golden Horde has often been told from the perspective of the societies it encountered. French historian Marie Favereau is trying to turn that perspective around. Her book, now available in Kazakh, examines the Ulus of Jochi not as a peripheral chapter in European or Mongol history, but as a powerful Eurasian state with its own political institutions, commercial networks and multicultural society.
Favereau presented the Kazakh-language edition of her book “The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World” at the Kazakh National Academy of Sciences in Almaty on Sept. 8. The event was organised by the Academy together with Steppe & World Publishing and the Embassy of France in Kazakhstan.
From L to R: Raissa Kader, founder of Steppe&World Publishing, Marie Favereau, Zhenisbek Tolen, head of the Center for Educational Sciences and Social Development at the National Academy of Sciences and French Consul General Maxime Gehringer. Photo credit: The Astana Times.
The publication comes at a time when Kazakhstan is placing renewed emphasis on the study of the Ulus of Jochi and the history of the Golden Horde. But Favereau’s work offers something more than another account of a familiar historical period: it asks readers to reconsider how the history of the steppe has traditionally been interpreted.
Favereau’s interest in the Golden Horde began nearly 25 years ago, when she was a student at the Sorbonne in Paris. She recalled that when she proposed studying the Ulus of Jochi, her supervisor warned her that the subject would be difficult because France had few sources on the period.
Rather than discouraging her, the response sent her in the opposite direction. “I thought, I’m going to travel all around the world and I will gather all the archives, all the material, all the objects I can to document, to explain the history of Ulus Jochi,” Favereau said at the presentation.
Her research subsequently took her to archives and collections in Vienna, Venice, Genova, Istanbul, and Crimea, while academic cooperation brought her into contact with historians and researchers in Kazakhstan and Tatarstan. That experience shaped the central approach of her work: understanding the Golden Horde on its own terms.
Favereau said Western academic discussions of empire have traditionally focused on examples such as the Roman, Greek and Ottoman empires, while nomadic political systems have received far less attention. “I had to write a book, a book that I would have needed as a student about Ulus Jochi, but from inside, from the nomadic perspective,” she said.
For Favereau, this distinction matters because the political and social structures of a steppe empire cannot simply be measured against those of Rome, Paris or Vienna. The Golden Horde was born as part of the Mongol Empire in the 13th century before developing into an independent political power under the descendants of Jochi, the eldest son of Genghis Khan.
Its political organisation, Favereau argues, was more complex than the image of a state ruled solely by a khan suggests. The begs, nomadic elites, assemblies and negotiations all played important roles in political decision-making. Favereau also draws attention to the role of elite women in the highest levels of government.