The 16th and 17th century raids of the Tatars of the Northern Black Sea take an important place in the historical consciousness of the Eastern European societies that were affected by it. With a focus on the destructions and their consequences much of the previous research found only insufficient and often biased explanations for the raids. The question what social function the raids had for the Crimean Khanate and the Tatar communities of the Ottoman Empire was barely addressed. This study tackles that gap of research. It casts light on the diplomatic, administrative, and economic practices that helped perpetuate cross-border violence. Special attention is given to the embedding of the raids into wider political networks stretching i.a. from Bağçasaray to Isfahan and Iași to Istanbul. Last but not least it scrutinizes the importance of collectively performed violence and the polarization of Crimean Tatar elites by fear of violence as factors influencing the raids. The book is an important contribution to the understanding of an European historical landscape that earned a lot of attention in the last years but remains little studied.
