title: Russia and the Heartland Episode
abstract: The Eurasian core is of fundamental importance for the Russian view of the world. The early history of the state involved confrontation by nomadic groups (Khazars, Pechenegs and Cumans) and struggles against nomadic cavalry with its mobile housing and superb riding skills, before the devastating conquest by the Mongols from which only Novgorod escaped (Bassin, 1998). A Mongol world system was very much a reality in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries; with its focus on Inner Eurasia, p