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@Tatyana – How is the rat flea theory of transmission of the Black Death viewed in Russia and other parts of the former Soviet area today?
The theory dates back only to the 1890s.
It’s considered gospel truth in Britain. It’s a classic example of “scientists” herding and thinking what they’re told, with anyone who doesn’t rate it with p>0.99 viewed as a witch, misinformationist, disinformationist, etc.
The Black Death spread in Norway where there were practically no rats of the rattus rattus species outside of the ports.
Brian,
I mentioned Genghis Khan because the Golden Horde was part of his empire.
That guy made up children and grandchildren, and these Genghisids were rulers of successor states. E.g. the Crimean Khanate was headed by Giray Genghisid.
Russia was attacked by both the Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan and later by the hordes ruled by his descendants. In short, for 300 years the Mongols, the Tatars, Tamerlane, Batu, and whoever else could figure them out, came here.
In our historiography, they were called by one common name, the Mongol-Tatars.On the northern side, there was another interesting neighbor – the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (I simplify for brevity: Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, Poland), who, taking advantage of the defeats that Russia suffered from the Asians, occupied Russian lands. This mess lasted until the reign of Ivan III, who began to restore the Russian state.
As for the plague, there are natural foci on the borders of Russia and the countries of Central Asia. We know that fleas living on rats, mice and hares spread it. Hares should live in Norway. And fleas seem to bite everyone, not necessarily just rats.
May I add a little more recent history from Clementine Churchill’s “My Visit to Russia” (Hutchinson 1946) based on her visit as founder and head of the British Red Cross Aid to Russia Fund? Clementine of course was Winston’s wife and she was in Russia on VE Day.
She went to Crimea from Rostov – on – Don where she describes the Germans killing of 40, 000 civilians and deportation of 10, 000 mainly women to forced labour in Germany.
She writes. “Sebastopol struck a chill to my heart, it presented so melancholy a spectacle. The devastation was not so complete, yet it seemed worse than at Stalingrad. Before the Nazis destroyed it in their blind rage, it must have been a dream of beauty…. She goes on to describe that before the war it had 137,000 people and now 47,000. The Germans drove into captivity 67,000 residents and slaughtered 10,000 of them.
She visited the Pioneer Camp in Artec, which the British Red Cross had set up in 1925 (!) and which was being restored after German occupation and destruction. It had developed into a sanatorium and I think this must be one of the places which feature in the abducted Ukrainian children myth.
In Crimea she visited Chekhov’s house and met his sister then 82 years old. “The reverence in which the Russians hold their great figures of their literature, music and art, is very impressive. — Every theatre is crowded”.
The traumatised people of Crimea were clearly trying to recover from the horrors of the recent experiences. “We do not want to even think about the Germans” After Crimea, Mrs Churchill went on to Odessa where she immediately visited a large number of British prisoners of war liberated by the Russians waiting for the ship to return them home and she wished them God speed the very next day.
Lest we forget.Also thank you Tatyana for this very interesting blog.
True that the Golden Horde was run by Chingissids, but if you are going to say it was part of GK’s empire then you should say the same about China under the Yuan Dynasty. They were both part of the Mongol empire.
There’s probably a mistranslate here between “чингисханский” and “Genghis Khan’s”.
Anyway the rats are more interesting!
There were rats in Norway outside the port areas, but they were Rattus norvegicus, not Rattus rattus. The former did not spread the plague.
You are trying to turn the rat flea theory into a mammalian flea theory to make it fit Norway.
But Norway remains a gaping hole in the theory. It leaves it open that the plague was NOT spread by rat fleas or any other kind of fleas but by human-to-human contagion, perhaps even with a deliberate element.
Most people with whom I raise this matter – or at least those who don’t just think whatever they’re currently being told by their “superiors” – are surprised to learn that the rat flea theory is very young and it only dates back to the 1890s. They had previously assumed everybody in the 14th century, 17th century, etc., thought it was rats and their fleas that spread the plague. When they didn’t.
It sounds as though in Russia and the Caucasus, just as in the west, “everyone knows” it was rat fleas that spread the plague. Would this be accurate?
Brian, I wish I could answer about the plague, but it has been gone for many years and I simply don’t even remember ever having to talk about the plague with anyone.
I’ll go back a bit to history, so I can tell you more about Crimea and what I saw there. I can’t get to the point that the Russians destroyed the Crimean Khanate by undermining its economy! And that statement was the most memorable impression from the trip 🙂
—
Russia started as a union of Slavic tribes under the leadership of the presumably Scandinavian ruling family of Rurik, and initially spread its influence along the trade route “from the Varangians to the Greeks”, that is, from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.Crimea was the place where the country adopted Christianity as a state religion (Orthodoxy of the Greek type).
Kiev was the capital of the state, or rather the main throne among other principalities ruled by other representatives of the Rurik dynasty.Due to the invasion of the Mongols and Tatars, the lands of the Russian Kiev throne fell partly under the Crimean Khanate, partly under the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
The Russian principalities of Moscow, Novgorod, Pskov were attacked by both Lithuanians and Teutons and Livonians (Germans, Swedes, Danes and other Catholics subjects of the Pope).
An interesting fact is that Catholics in Russia were sometimes called латиняне *Latins, probably because religion was a big part of life and an important component of identity. So the church service in Latin for Catholics was important distinction.In general, as I said, we have different versions of history.
I’ve seen opinions that Russia did not exist before the Mongols, as if after the collapse of the Horde, Russian Christians crawled out of nowhere. That the Tatars are the indigenous population of Crimea. Ukrainians write their own history, where they have no relation to the Russians and Kiev was not the capital of Rus’.
I should say there are also dirty opinions: the Russians polluted their blood by mixing with Asians. The Ukrainians were under the rule of worthy white masters, the Poles, and then Austria-Hungary and therefore are the superior race, pure blood and the Russians are subhumans. Indeed, Nazi ideas fell on fertile ground there. These speeches were directly spoken on camera by a creature named Sarah Ashton Cirillo, the Speakpokemon of the Ukrainian army.In addition to the language of church services, there is also type of bread as a symbol of identity.
As a real housewife, I will tell you a little educational program: by mixing flour with water, you will get dough that can be baked into bread. It will not be porous, and therefore it is more convenient to make it thin and bake it well untill nearly dry and crusty, so that you can eat it with a drink. Underbaked bread of this type is chewy, like rubber.
If you want to get a fluffy, porous bread, then you cannot do without sourdough and yeast.
The first type is called unleavened bread, and the second is sourdough bread.The split of the churches into Catholicism and Orthodoxy occurred somewhere in the 11th century, and the type of bread for communion was one of the reasons.
—
So, visiting all these cave monasteries, I didn’t like its atmosphere. I am a cheerful person and the thought of living a life of limitation and isolation terrifies me. But still, I understand that some people may have reasons to choose such a half-life, which guarantees them at least not to participate in social competition and the inevitable cruelty and retreat from high spiritual principles associated with it.I asked the guide why these Orthodox monasteries and temples in caves? In my region, they are located in rather luxurious buildings easily accessible to everyone. The guide explained that Orthodox monks went to the mountains in whole communities during the reign of the Tatars. The Christian population was enslaved and considered socially inferior in comparison with Muslims.
By the way, the Crimean Khanate occupied the lands of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, not only Crimea.And so, while talking about the situation of Christians, our guide said the very thought that struck me:
<b>Empress Catherine bought Christian slaves from the Crimean Khan, and thereby undermined the economy and brought the khanate into decline.</b> I swear it was said as if ransoming slaves was a bad thing.—
Along with Greeks, Genoese, and Russians, Armenians also lived in Crimea.
Armenia, our southern neighbor in the Caucasus, was the first country in the world to make Christianity its state religion, and this happened in 301. The founders are considered to be the apostles of Jesus Christ who preached in the 1st century, so it’s called the Armenian Apostolic Church. This Christian religion belongs to the pre-Chalcedonian (they don’t accept the decisions of the clergy that were made at the church council in the 5th century, and, accordingly, other church councils). That is, they try to preserve the teaching in the form in which it was given by the apostles. By the way, other such Orthodox churches are the Syrian, Coptic, and Ethiopian.
—-I asked the guide directly why it was bad, and he answered “They cried, they didn’t want to leave”.
Oh! Perhaps someone cried leaving their sweet slavery, nevertheless, Empress Catherine II gave the Khanate a ransom and the Greeks settled in Mariupol, the Armenians founded the Nakhichevan region in Rostov-on-Don, and the Zaporozhian Cossacks occupied the steppes around the Kuban River.
I think, if your economy is based on the exploitation of slaves, then it will probably collapse without this labor force (of course, unless you yourself roll up your sleevs and start working, as the slaves did).
I don’t think that was the only reason, usually it takes a combination of many circumstances for a state to collapse.
One way or another, the Crimean Khanate is over.I will leave a couple of links to my comments on the history of Russia, Crimea and the Tatar people, made earlier on this site.
Russia: beginning
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/07/cold-wars-and-profit/comment-page-1/#comment-950608
Some history of western russians, aka ukrainians
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2023/03/truth-and-ukraine/comment-page-3/#comment-1035744
Dialogue on history of Crimeaan Tatars
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/12/indigenous-eurasian-islamic-populations/comment-page-3/#comment-914501
Some thoughts of Crimean Tatars deported to Uzbekistan and still living there
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/12/indigenous-eurasian-islamic-populations/comment-page-3/#comment-914791And for now I will translate for you what other peoples lived in Crimea, what they believed in and how deliciously the Crimean Tatars feed their guests, and a little more about languages, architecture and religions. And what people in Crimea say about Ukraine.
Black Death, in my view, I would have expected that most infection was passed person to person
Crispa, thanks for you interesting comment. I didn’t know that Mrs Churchill visited Russia. Actually, looking at modern UK -RU relations, or, better say, hostility – hard to believe it was not always so.
Bertram Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale
Entering the Foreign Office in 1858, Mitford was appointed Third Secretary of the British Embassy at Saint Petersburg.
He is the suspected genetic father of Clementine Churchill.
Interesting interlocking storiesThere is no dislike of Russia or Russians, among ordinary working people in Britain.
There is no dislike of Russia or Russians among the Royal Family of Britain.
I doubt there is much animosity by 99% of British people towards Russian people.
the angst is from the security services, like MI6By the time the sun runs past your place, I’ll have already gone to bed 🙂
For now it’s evening in my place, a beautiful warm and calm evening of an August Sunday. There’s another Sunday ahead and on that day summer will officially end according to the calendar. So I wish you to have a beautiful Penultimate Summer Sunday Evening, and I’ll continue about Crimea.
—
So, the Crimean Khanate ended, the Ottomans, whose vassal it was, were defeated, and in the 18th century, Crimea became part of the Russian Empire.Actually, Russia changed its name from Tsardom to Empire shortly before, when the Swedes were defeated by Tsar Peter I.
By the end of the century, not only Crimea became Russian. Also, the elders of Ingushetia concluded an agreement on accepting Russian citizenship. Georgia, attacked by the Persians and Turks, also asked for help of a Christian ruler, and Eastern Georgia became a protectorate of Russia, and later the entire territory of Georgia with Abkhazia too.Together with Austria and Prussia, Russia divided the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, annexing the lands of now Belarus and Lithuania.
It was during that period that Novorossiya was formed, it included Crimea, Donetsk, Lugansk, Odessa regions, Bessarabia (now Moldova and back then ot was Romania). The Chernigov and Kharkov regions were already part of the empire at that time, as was the Kiev province of Russia since about the time of Peter the Great.The name Novorossiya means New-Russia, other parts of Ukraine were called Malorussia *Small-Russia, and the undisputed lands of Russia at that time were called Great Russia *not a very correct wording, imo. Given the historical context, it would rather be translated as Big Russia, or Main Russia, just as the islanders use the word ‘mainland’.
No matter how hard Ukrainian nationalists try to emphasize the purity of their blood and the dirtiness of Russian blood due to mixing with Asians, the historical fact is that Golden Horde took Kiev back in the 13th century.
People identifying themselves as belonging to the Russian root were for some time divided by the khanate. But they still live somewhere there in the Carpathian mountains, the people of Rusins. Of course, over such a long time, people assimilated, but in 18th century, people still considered their religion, their native language and the type of bread they eat to be important signs of their identity.Guides in Crimea often mention Catherine II.
Indeed, during her reign, Crimea became Russian again, large cities, ports, and infrastructure were founded. She came on a grand journey with her courtiers, and several more landmarks were created for that event, preserved to this day.But you know what, to hell with the emperors. Monarchs have always had the habit of getting rid of their relatives in the most brutal ways, to remove potential competitors to the throne. Odinary people did the same thing once, and the church, this supporter of the idea of the divine origin of royal power, elevated the last Russian tsar and his entire family to the rank of saints.
I’d better tell you about other ethnicities.
Jews lived in Crimea (and where didn’t they live?) and a branch calling itself Karaites.
Like Armenian Christianity, which accepts only the teaching itself and rejects what the clerics later agreed on, the Karaites accepted only the original teaching for the Jews, the Pentateuch of Moses.
A small community, there are probably no more than 2,000 of them in the world now, as the guides said. This group of people was said to be distinguished by special principles, incorruptible honesty, so that the Crimean khans allowed only Karaites to hold positions related to the treasury.
One of the Karaites was the father of the greatest Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova.
During the Crimean Khanate, the prince of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Vitovt *Vytautas the Great, bought out some of the Karaites. I think there must still be a diaspora somewhere out there.Another community of people who had Crimea as their place of residence was the community of dervishes.
We visited Tekkiye, sorry, I transliterate, I don’t know if this word has an accepted spelling in your part of the planet.Dervishes are a certain sect within Islam. Followers of it believe that with the help of psychotropic practices one can plunge into a trance and thus understand some Higher Truth.
You must have seen the videos of these people spinning in a special pose with one hand turned to their forehead and the other hand lowered to the ground. Шn the ads ‘travel to Turkey’. I took photos of artistically stylized images.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/5VUf7DcE51x1q8R99I can’t help but recall Castaneda and the popular joke about a scientist who took a dose of psychotropic substances in the hope of receiving the Great Revelation.
It appeared to him in a delirious vision and he hurried to write it down. When the next morning he sobered up and took his notes, he saw the Great Revelation, which he wrote down:
The Peel of a Banana is Longer than the Banana itself. Wow!There was a wonderful apricot tree, dropping its fruit on the tile roof of this Tekkiye, and I took a photo of it, because it reminds me a lot of my home. My husband’s head wrapped in a scarf was also in the photo.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/JxaW2sMDS3Zju9e1ASide note
My rich experience in marriages tells me that men often ignore women’s words. That is, if I tell my husband that I need a new smartphone or TV, then he is interested. But if I voice the need to buy clothes or food, then somehow these messages pass by his centers of attention.
This time, I reminded my husband to go to the store next door to the logistics company where I knew he would be the evening before leaving for Crimea, and choose a hat, or bandana, or a Panama hat for himself. Guess what? Sure, he forgot to.However, I am not new to taking care of husbands, I gave him sunscreen and guess what? Of course he covered his hands and face, but forgot about his neck.
It’s a good thing that the area in the city of Eupatoria (btw, another Greek name) is filled with religious places, so they sell scarves everywhere (one needs a scarf to cover the head before entering a holy place). I learned the word Shemagh, I learned that he theoretically knows how to tie it, I learned that he has a genuine Palestinian cotton scarf somewhere in the hoouse. But in practice, I just had to wrap his head with anyrhing available so that the scorching sun wouldn’t cause too much harm.In Eupatoria the guides may take you around a couple of blocks and you’ll see the holy places of all confessions. They call it (the center of the city) yje New Jerusalem
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Ww7iXDXziBi13rzw9Within near reach you see Karaite kenassas, dervishes’ Tekiye, Jewish synagogues, Orthodox Christian temples, Islam mosques. People very, I mean VERY MUCH, emphasize that the region respects everyone and is tolerant to everyone. The sign of the fusion of cultures and religions is on all tourist sites, even on the manhole covers of sewer manholes.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/7Ls3CxBSXuGi7XW37A few more photos:
Karaite holy places complex, Evpatoria
https://photos.app.goo.gl/DBBfWGHTiL1FPT5p6Entrance to the Jewish synagogue
https://photos.app.goo.gl/3DuydBFeKc58BB5a8
And the painting with scenes of Jewish life on the walls of the buildings around this
https://photos.app.goo.gl/phdGZR6BX1RAeeas6
the inscription says Shalom, and only then did I realize that this is the same as SalamArmenian Church
https://photos.app.goo.gl/F7LPnBXGvsj3EiEb7Orrthodox church
https://photos.app.goo.gl/tdHN8hyPTSAMo5MB8Medieval structures, sorry I don’t know who built it, but I remember that the tram line now goes along the defensive wall of the medieval city
https://photos.app.goo.gl/AkXTezSbE5oav7ex5In general, many peoples, speaking many languages and professing many beliefs, had the opportunity to live in that land.And their descendants continue to live there.
I hope to continue my story tomorrow, finally moving on to the Tatars.
I watched an interesting documentary on the Black Death in England which noted that rats were not widespread at the time, and showed how it was brought in with a consignment of fine clothes from Venice. The merchant was the first to die, followed by his closest neighbours. The disease had a 2 week gestation period which meant that people fleeing it had invariably left it too late, and could spread it widely, over great distances. The symptoms described match those of the black cholera, or ebony cholera, as it was called in the 1860s when it spread across Africa, and incidentally brought an end to the slave trade in its wake.
Ebola was studied by European doctors in Zanzibar and stringent hygiene and disinfection practices protected most Europeans from the disease in 1865 when it arrived there.
It seems that Ebola has 150 year cycles, and a 70% death rate. Yersinia Pestis has need detected, but was Ebola even looked for? It was a newly recognised pathogen when the outbreak occurred recently. Circumstantial evidence would support this hypothesis. More evidence is needed though
An interesting article by John Pilger in 2010 described a sojourn in Crimea where the Russian and Ukrainian navies moored alongside each other and mingled in the ports. The Ukrainian navy presented as a modern, American style navy, while the Russian navy appeared more archaic and formal in its interactions. The impression was however of peaceful coexistence at that time.
I would suggest that the fleas on rats, might have been a vector.
I believe most transmission would be person to personIf you think of the scale of
The Black Death,
in North Africa, Asia and Europe up to half of all people becoming dead, within an 18 month period, as this shadow swept, East to West.
It must have mostly been human interaction, for the overwhelming vector.With all due respect, who gives a flying f**k about the black death in this thread. All you need to know is in various wiki articles including human to human transmission. There are still occasional outbreaks of plague and it’s well studied.
Can we now stop derailing Tatyana’s informative thread on Crimea in 2025.
They ought to have you on the Crimea tourist board Tatyana. Thanks for your efforts.I try to continue my story, but as if on purpose, inconvenient requests come in. They ask for things of rare demand, requiring an individual approach and painstaking production. I feel like in the Strugatskys’ story A Billion Years Before the End of the World 🙂
I’ll return with a continuation, hopefully tomorrow. I apologize and ask for a little patience, please
1. “The name Novorossiya means New-Russia, other parts of Ukraine were called Malorussia *Small-Russia, and the undisputed lands of Russia at that time were called Great Russia *not a very correct wording, imo. Given the historical context, it would rather be translated as Big Russia, or Main Russia, just as the islanders use the word ‘mainland’.”
That is a brilliant commentary and could apply e.g. to “Great” Britain viewed as the mainland and “Little” Britain, i.e. Brittany, viewed as … I’m not sure what word is best to counterpose to “mainland” – perhaps “periphery”? Because water doesn’t have to be involved, and this would fit well with the etymology of “Ukraine”, у края, “at the edge”.
2. @ET – please get a grip. Nobody is trying to derail Tatyana’s fascinating commentary.
3. @Tatyana – Can you explain about the Cossacks please. You mention the Zaporozhe Cossacks. I do not really understand what kind of entity the Cossacks are. Are they a people? Are they a cavalry regiment with extremely strong traditions? Those who want to shoot out some fast answers should maybe hold back and ensure they are aware of things like the Balachka dialect, Cossack churches, and the Buryat Cossacks who aren’t Slavic at all. They seem to be a very sui generis entity, although there are other groups of which that could also be said, such as the Druze and the Jews. What are some near analogues to the Cossacks, I wonder? The Gurkhas?
As regards the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war, as far as I am aware the only Cossack fighting units have been on the Russian side, but Cossack references have also been deployed on the Ukrainian side and I think some Cossacks may have been involved in defence work on the Ukrainian side away from the front.
My understanding moved a small way forward when I encountered the idea that Cossacks were originally Slavs and Lithuanians who’d “gone Mongol”, but I’m sure there must be much more to it.
Two super-crisp sentences defining what kind of entity the Cossacks are would be amazing.
4. The bread! Well what is the key difference between Catholic and Orthodox bread?? I was once given some amazing Ukrainian black bread by a Russian friend. She didn’t tell me whether it was Uniate or Orthodox. All she said was it was Ukrainian but it was delicious.
ET, I most certainly do not want to disrupt Tatyana.
I would like to say that i believe that RU forces are in South West Ukraine, the black Sea area, they have just disabled a Ukrainian naval craft. Simferopol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_reconnaissance_ship_SimferopolI suspect that Russia intends to not just take the Sea of Azov and Crimea but all of the Black Sea shore, that was Ukraine.
