Proximity, technological advancement, and numerical superiority: Ultimately, these three conditions led to the Muscovite victory over the Kazan Khanate during the middle of the 16th century. In Mark Galeotti’s new book, “The Siege of Kazan 1552: Ivan the Terrible Breaks the Kazan Khanate,” readers are introduced to the power struggle between the Orthodox Christian Russians and the Muslim Kazanians over a strategic area at the confluence of the Volga and Kazanka rivers, an area which has now long belonged to Russia and is its fifth largest city.
The author discusses the motivations behind the Muscovites’ invasion of the Kazan Khanate and the eventual siege of the city of Kazan. There were three primary motivating factors: the expansion of the Khanate into Muscovite lands, the disruption of Russian (Muscovite) trade on the Volga River, and the Muslims’ slaving raids into Muscovy.
