Most traditional scholarship has accepted the notions that (1) the Mongol invasion "destroyed" Kievan culture, (2) the Tatar period was one of "stultification" and "isolation from the West", and (3) "Russian" culture was deeply influenced by Golden Horde culture, in particular by "Oriental" conceptions of despotism. These views do not accord with the evidence and should probably be discarded.
In the first place, it seems incorrect to say that Kievan culture was destroyed. In the shift of the cultural centre of gravity to the numerous regional centres, Kievan traditions were in the main continued and in some cases (i.e., Galician literature, Novgorodian icon painting, Suzdalian architecture) enjoyed remarkable development.
Similarly, the notions of stultification and isolation from the West cannot be supported. The enormous Novgorodian culture sphere, the upper Dnieper territories that eventually came under Lithuanian control, and the principalities of Volhynia and Galicia all had, if anything, closer contacts with western and central Europe than in the previous period.
As to "Tatar influence," in the areas of religion and intellectual life, it was ractically nonexistent. Control of formal culture by the Orthodox clergy and Muslim divines and limited contact between the Slavic and Turkic populations prevented it. There is no evidence that any single Turkic or Islamic text of religious, philosophical, literary or scholarly content was translated directly into Slavonic or any East Slavic vernacular during the period.
Concerning the secular culture of the court and counting house, the situation was radically different. These spheres were controlled by very pragmatic princes, merchants, and diplomats. Here, Slavs and Tatars elaborated together an international subculture whose language was Turkic and whose administrative techniques and chancellery culture were essentially those of the Golden Horde. Slavic merchants took full part in this culture, and the princes of Muscovy, in particular, developed their original court culture and chancellery practices within its context. These borrowings, however, were not of a theoretical or ideological nature, and to ascribe later despotism--and its theoretical basis--to "Oriental" influence is to misunderstand the development of Muscovite absolutism.
