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Ханши и правосудие: правительницы перед судом и правительницы-судьи в средневековых тюрко-монгольских государствах
The paper is an attempt to study peculiarities of the participation of women from ruling dynasties of the Turkic-Mongol states of 13th-17th centuries in trials. Sometimes female rulers were the accused, sometimes they were judges themselves. Data from historical sources on the Mongol Empire, Golden Horde, states of the Hulaguids and Timurids in Central Asia and the Kasimov Khanate are analyzed. In most cases, female rulers stood trial for participating in a plot or for solely attempting the life of the legitimate sovereign. Such trials of female rulers, in fact, were often just a formality and executions were carried out in public and with extreme brutality: male rulers couldn’t accept the fact that the women competed with them as equals in their fight for power and authority in the “men’s world”. Because of the peculiarities of the legal framework of the Turkic-Mongol states, it is no wonder that trials of female rulers were infrequent. In most cases, they appeared in court either as mediators in family disputes of members of ruling dynasties or as supreme judges, while actual decisions were taken by other authorities.