He received from his contemporaries a nickname that was far from honorable. “Western” historians accuse him of “betrayal” and “servility to the Horde”: they say, his power rested on the Tatar sabers, the blood of his fellow tribesmen was on his hands, and the martyrdom of the Tver princes was on his conscience... Ivan Kalita really fought for power fiercely, furiously, mercilessly, sparing neither others nor himself, not disdaining either bribery, denunciations to the khan, or Horde help. But it was during his reign that Rus' received the necessary respite, grew stronger, recovered, raised its head (according to the chroniclers: “There was silence for the Christians and the Tatars stopped fighting the Russian land”), it was under Ivan Danilovich and his sons that the “unafraid” generation was born, who dared to go to the Kulikovo field, it was his grandson Dmitry Donskoy who won the great victory, with which the liberation and rise of Rus' began ...