.

After this thunderbolt, which struck terror into the whole of Russia,
the Tartars paused and returned to the East. Nothing more was heard of
them. Thirteen years passed, during which the princes reverted to
their perpetual discords. Those in the northeast had given no help to
the Russians of the Dnieper; perhaps the grand prince George II of
Suzdal[58] may have rejoiced over the humiliation of the Kievians and
Galicians. The Mongols were forgotten; the chronicles, however, are
filled with fatal presages: in the midst of scarcity, famine and
pestilence, of incendiaries in the towns and calamities of all sorts,
they remark on the comet of 1224, the earthquake, and eclipse of the
sun of 1230.

The Tartars were busy finishing the conquest of China, but presently
one of the sons of Genghis, Ugudei, sent his nephew Batu to the West.
As the reflux of the Polovtsi had announced the invasion of 1224, that
of the Saxin nomads, related to the Khirghiz who took refuge on the
lands of the Bulgarians of the Volga, warned men of a new irruption of
the Tartars, and indicated its direction. It was no longer South
Russia, but Sozdalian Russia, that was threatened. In 1237 Batu
conquered the Great City, capital of the half-civilized Bulgars, who
were, like the Polovtsi, ancient enemies of Russia, and who were to be
included in her ruin. Bolgary was given up to the flames, and her
inhabitants were put to the sword. The Tartars next plunged into the
deep forests of the Volga, and sent a sorcerer and two officers as
envoys to the princes of Riazan. The three princes of Riazan, those of
Pronsk, Kolomna, Moscow, and Murom, advanced to meet them.

"If you want peace," said the Tartars, "give us the tenth of your
goods."

"When we are dead," replied the Russian princes, "you can have the
whole."

Though abandoned by the princes of Tchernigoff and the grand prince
George II, of whom they had implored help, the dynasty of Riazan
accepted the unequal struggle. They were completely crushed; nearly
all their princes remained on the field of battle. Legend has
embellished their fall. It is told how Feodor preferred to die rather
than see his young wife, Euphrasia, the spoil of Batu; and how, on
learning his fate, she threw herself and her son from the window of
the _terem_. Oleg the Handsome, found still alive on the battle-field,
repelled the caresses, the attention, and religion of the Khan, and
was cut in pieces. Riazan was immediately ta