Contours of Little Tataria: On the Issue of the Formation of the Political Map of the Crimean Khanate in the XV – Mid XVI Century

The article is dedicated to the study of the formation of the political map of the Crimean Khanate, often referred to in historical cartography as Little Tartary, which is why the title of the work is chosen. The research attempts to shed light on the process of establishing the political borders of the state in the context of military-diplomatic competition in the steppe and with diverse economic populations. The chronological framework is determined by the period from the mid-15th century to the mid-16th century, marking the time of the highest power of the Khanate. As a result, the core of the source base consists of materials from diplomatic documentation, Lithuanian metrics, and khan's decrees. In order to provide a detailed examination of the problem, data from narrative and cartographic sources were also included. Alongside this, publications by domestic historians were utilized. The work is built on the principles of historicism and complex analysis, including comparative-historical methods. The methods used enabled the comparison of data obtained from different sources. The scientific novelty primarily lies in the fact that, despite the general familiarity with the sources, their consideration and use within historical geography research have not been the subject of independent study. The documents are one of the most important sources, as cartographic materials provide only static information, whereas written sources allow for an attempt to reconstruct the borders of the Crimean Khanate. The dynamism and instability of borders are explained by military-diplomatic confrontations in the steppes of the Northern Black Sea region, as well as the very culture of nomadic society, where the border is not a line on a map but a specific controlled zone. During the study, we reached the following conclusions: 1. The assertion that borders effectively dissolved in the steppe, based on cartographic materials, does not entirely reflect reality. The reconstruction of borders based on written sources reveals a different model of border delineation. Instead of a demarcation line, it is a zone of interaction delineated by areas of influence, where the nomadic groups were located (Bujak, Kuban, and the Dnipro-Don forest-steppe). The next thesis concerns inconsistencies regarding territorial possessions; specifically, according to the titles of the Crimean khans, all power over the former territory of the Golden Horde was in their hands, which did not reflect actual military-political control.