Donskoy Dmitry Ivanovich Prince of Moscow and Grand Duke of Vladimir, nicknamed Donskoy for the victory in the battle on the Kulikovo field.
The reign of Dmitry Donskoy (1359-1389) turned out to be a turning point not only in the history of the Moscow principality of the 14th century, but also in the history of all of Rus'. Prince Dmitry Ivanovich was the first of the Moscow rulers to begin the struggle for the liberation of Russian lands from the Horde dependence, under his leadership the first major victory over the Horde army was won on September 8, 1380 at the Kulikovo field. Ranked among the saints in 1988, the year of the millennium of the baptism of Rus.
Dmitry Ivanovich was born on October 12, 1350 in Moscow from the second marriage of the specific prince of Zvenigorodsky Ivan the Red (years of life: 1326-1359), the second son of the Grand Duke of Moscow and Vladimir Ivan I Kalita (years of reign: 1325-1340). The name of Prince Dmitry's mother was Alexandra Ivanovna. Nothing more is known about her.
Dmitry's father became Grand Duke in 1353 after the death of his older brother Simeon the Proud from the plague. The nickname "Red" he apparently received for his appearance. The chroniclers also called him "The Meek" and "The Merciful", probably for his character traits.
In Rus' at that time there was a "great silence". After the suppression of the Tver uprising in 1327 by the Tatar-Moscow army led by Ivan Kalita, Tver lost its former significance, the label for the great reign of Vladimir passed to the Moscow prince Ivan I Kalita. He was a faithful ulusnik of the Golden Horde khans and bequeathed this role to his sons - Simeon and Ivan.
However, the policy of serving the Moscow princes to the Horde also had a positive side, not only for the elevated Moscow principality, but also for the entire North-Eastern Rus', which since 1243 was dependent on the Golden Horde. From 1327 to 1367 there was not a single Tatar army on the Russian lands. This made it possible to restore the economy. A new generation of Russian people came who did not see the Horde pogrom and were not afraid of the Tatars.
Another achievement of grandfather Dmitry Donskoy was the transfer of the right to collect the Horde output from the Baskaks to the Grand Duke of Vladimir. Part of the tribute settled in the Moscow treasury, which had a beneficial effect on the internal situation of the Moscow lands. In the capital, Ivan Kalita built a new oak Kremlin and laid the first stone Assumption Cathedral. Ivan Kalita's friendship with Metropolitan Peter strengthened Moscow's ecclesiastical positions, and Peter's successor, the Greek Theognost, generally transferred the residence of the metropolitans of Rus' from Vladimir to Moscow (1328).
Simeon the Proud (1340-1353) and Ivan II the Red (1353-1359), who ruled after the death of Kalita, continued their father's policy. There was a process of expansion of the territory of the Moscow principality, begun under the younger son of Alexander Nevsky and the first Moscow prince Daniel (1276-1303). In 1301, Kolomna was conquered from Ryazan, and in 1303, Mozhaisk was conquered from Smolensk. According to the will of Ivan Dmitrievich's nephew, Daniil of Moscow received a large Pereyaslavl-Zaleska principality. Ivan Kalita bought some lands from various Russian princes. Under Simeon, Yuryev Polsky went to Moscow in 1351, under Ivan II - the Kostroma and Dmitrov lands, and from 1353 Vereya gradually became entrenched in Moscow. The attempt of the Grand Duke of Lithuania and Russia, Olgerd, to capture Mozhaisk failed, although Ivan II granted the Mozhaysk people the right to fight off Olgerd themselves or accept him.
As we can see, the predecessors of Prince Dmitry Ivanovich on the Moscow throne made a good start. However, a rosy picture of life and the Moscow principality, and all of Rus' and all European and Asian countries in the middle of the XIV century. was not. The epidemic of the "black death" - the plague struck all the countries of the Old World except Poland, killing from 30 to 40% of the population. The plague came to Rus' twice. Simeon the Proud died from her with his entire family, Dmitry Donskoy's father died of the plague on November 13, 1359 at the age of 33. At the time of his death, 3 men remained in the Moscow princely family, one younger than the other. The sons of Ivan II Dmitry and Ivan (1354-1364) were respectively 9 and 5 years old; from the younger brother of Ivan II, the specific Serpukhov prince Andrey, who also died from the plague in 1354, left a 5-year-old son Vladimir. As the eldest in family account and age, Dmitry Ivanovich took the Moscow throne.
The Grand Ducal Table of Vladimir was lost by the little Prince Dmitry of Moscow. In the Golden Horde, there was no practice of issuing labels for a great reign to vassals-children. The label went to the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod principality.
Ivan II, dying, left his son-heir and his principality in the care of the Moscow boyars and Metropolitan Alexei (in the world Eleutherius), close to the Moscow princely family. Alexei's father, a major Chernigov boyar Fyodor Byakont, moved with 2 thousand of his people to serve in Moscow at the end of the 13th century. Prince Ivan, the future Grand Duke Ivan Kalita, became the godfather of the future metropolitan. Eleutherius early accepted monasticism. Natural intelligence and closeness to Ivan Kalita and Metropolitan Feognost allowed him to make a brilliant spiritual career. In 1354, the Patriarch of Constantinople approved Alexei as Metropolitan of All Rus'. Already under Ivan II, Metropolitan Alexei was, in fact, the head of the Moscow government, and under the juvenile Dmitry, he already officially headed it as the guardian of the Moscow prince.
The peak of the power of the Golden Horde in the XIV century. came under the rule of Khan Uzbek. The Muslim Uzbek, having become the ruler of the Golden Horde, decided to break with the ancient Mongolian polytheistic tradition of religious tolerance. In 1314, he declared Islam the state religion of the Golden Horde and began to fight fiercely with those of his subjects who tried to continue to practice the old cults of their fathers. Many Murzas even fled from religious persecution to Rus', where they gradually adopted Orthodoxy, entering the environment of the Russian aristocracy. However, Khan Uzbek did not forbid the part of Rus', vassal from the Golden Horde, to adhere to Orthodoxy. He confirmed and even expanded the privileges of the Russian Orthodox Church, according to legend, as a token of gratitude to Metropolitan Alexei, who managed to cure the khan's wife Taidula of blindness.
After the death of Uzbek in 1341, the throne was taken by his eldest son Tinibek (1341-1342), who was soon overthrown by his brother Dzhanibek, who was killed along with his other brother and rival Hirza. However, Khan Janibek himself, after 14 years, fell victim to a conspiracy at the hands of his own son Berdibek, who hastened to destroy also 12 of his brothers. All these coups, accompanied by the violent death of the Golden Horde khans, testified to the gradual weakening of the central power in the Golden Horde.
And indeed, soon she plunged into a 25-year chaos, called the Russian chronicles "the great Horde zamyatna." Khan Berdibek (1357-1359) was destroyed in August 1359 by a certain Kulpa. Kulpa himself claimed that he was the son of Khan Dzhanibek and brother of Berdibek, but most sources call him an impostor. Kulpa stayed on the throne from 1359 to 1360, and in general, in the period from 1359 to 1380, 25 rulers from different branches of the Chingizids (descendants of the eldest son of Genghis Khan Khan Jochi, father of Batu) visited the Golden Horde throne. With the death of Berdibek, the Batuid dynasty (descendants of Batu) in Sarai was interrupted, the offspring of Batu's younger brothers, especially the descendants of Ming-Timur, “hunted” for the throne.
The Golden Horde actually broke up into separate autonomous uluses. In its western part of the Danube (Crimean or Black Sea) Horde, as a regent under the weak rulers of the Batuids (at first Abdullah was the khan, after his death in 1370 the 8-year-old Muhammad-Bulak ascended the throne), the temnik Mamai was strengthened. He was the grandson of Isatai, an emir close to Khan Uzbek, and was married to the daughter of the murdered Khan Berdibek. Under Berdibek, Mamai occupied one of the highest positions in the Golden Horde. He was a beklyarbek, who was responsible for the leadership of the army, foreign policy and the supreme court. Mamai immediately declared Kulpa a usurper and an impostor. Beklyarbek wanted to see Abdullah on the throne of the Golden Horde in Sarai, but this did not meet with unanimity among the influential princes, emirs and murzas. The subsequent 11-year (1359-1370) war of Mamai for the rights of his protege was crowned with only tactical successes. Mamai did not restore the unity of the Golden Horde, although for a while he established his control over the White Horde (the right bank of the Volga), and in 1363, 1367-1368, 1372-1373. captured the Golden Horde capital city of Saray. The headquarters of Mamai himself and his khans was located in the lower reaches of the Dnieper near the city of Ukek. Now this place is flooded by the Kakhovka reservoir.
Baty's invasion of Rus' in 1237-1241. had enormous consequences for Russian history. The invasion deepened and, as subsequent centuries showed, made irreversible the split of the ancient Russian space into three independent parts: Western (White) Rus', independent of Batu and falling under vassalage from the state of Batu, the Golden Horde, Southern Rus' and North-Eastern Rus' with northwestern Novgorod and Pskov. However, the process of formation of independent ethnic groups in these territories took a long time: from the end of the 13th to the 17th centuries. It was not fully completed even in the 18th - early 20th centuries.
From the middle of the XIII century. the main national task for all the lands that previously constituted a single ancient Russian space was the fight against the Horde yoke or its possible spread to the lands that Batu had not conquered in its time. The unsuccessful experience of local uprisings in North-Eastern Rus' in 1252 and 1263, as well as the strategically unsuccessful struggle of the Galician-Volyn princes against the Horde dependence, testified that it was possible to end the yoke of the "Saray kings" only by combining the efforts of all the principalities, at the same time waiting for the weakening of the Golden Horde itself.
History has put forward two alternatives in the unification of Rus'. One was the consolidation of Russian lands within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Russia. This country arose in the middle-end of the 13th century. as a union of Lithuanian and Western Russian lands in response to the aggression of the crusaders and the claims of the Golden Horde. Under Gediminas and his son Olgerd, 8 out of 12 independent lands turned out to be part of the Lithuanian-Russian state, into which Kievan Rus disintegrated after 1132.
The largest geopolitical event of the middle of the XIV century. the Battle of the Blue Waters came. Taking advantage of the "great jam" in the Horde, the Grand Duke of Lithuania and Russia Olgerd on December 25, 1362 defeated the Golden Horde khans, who controlled Southern Rus', and annexed the southern Russian principalities to his state. Thus fell the Horde yoke in the future Ukraine. The South Russian and West Russian principalities made up most of the territory and population of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Russia. The chronicle of the principality was in Russian, and the court was decided according to the Russkaya Pravda. The principality itself was a federation of lands, where the power of the grand duke was largely limited by the need to take into account the interests of local princes and cities of Lithuania and the western and southern Russian regions, the Russian-Lithuanian aristocracy and squad.
The Gediminids sought to extend their success in the consolidation of Russian lands to the North-Eastern Russian principalities and Novgorod and Pskov. However, here they met not only the opposition of the Golden Horde, but also the resistance of the North-Eastern and North-Western Russian space itself.
First Tver, and then Moscow became local land collectors. Both principalities gravitated toward unitarity and the growth of central princely power. It was a completely different model of statehood in comparison with the Lithuanian-Russian principality. Differences between Tver and Moscow in the first half of the XIV century. consisted in the peculiarities of foreign policy orientation. The princes of Tver often entered into dynastic marriages with the Gediminids, which could potentially lead (but in fact did not lead) to the emergence of a Lithuanian-Tver alliance against the Horde. The first Moscow princes were guided by the support of the Golden Horde kings. The princes of Moscow always lagged behind those of Tver by one generation, and this, by virtue of the ancient Russian succession to the throne, deprived them of the right to the Vladimir grand-ducal table. However, under the conditions of the yoke, the will of the khan stood above all ancient Russian legal norms. He could give anyone a label for a great or specific reign. The pro-Lithuanian connections of the Tver princes forced the Golden Horde to look favorably on the Moscow rulers, and they, using the help of the Horde, defeated Tver. Moscow gradually became a stronger center in the matter of uniting the North Russian lands around itself.
The successes of his predecessors and the weakening of the Golden Horde opened up the prospects for a new military-political course for the young Moscow prince Dmitry Ivanovich. He was the first of the Moscow princes to turn from a "faithful ulusnik", increasing his inheritance, into a fighter for the national interests of all of Rus', who demanded the overthrow of the yoke. Prince Dmitry did not miss this opportunity, and it was for this that the great Russian historian V.O. Klyuchevsky gave him an assessment as an outstanding statesman, as opposed to his predecessors, who seemed to the historian to be pragmatic specific "predators".
We have already said that having ascended the Moscow throne, the 9-year-old Prince Dmitry lost the label for the great reign of Vladimir. The return of the label became one of the main tasks of the Moscow boyar government and Metropolitan Alexei.
In January 1360, Khan Kulpa with his two sons was killed by Nauruz Khan, who also declared himself the son of Khan Dzhanibek. Nauruz Khan issued a label for the great reign of Vladimir to the great Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod prince Andrei Konstantinovich, who handed it over to his brother and heir Dmitry Konstantinovich. At one time, the father of Andrei and Dmitry, the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod prince Konstantin Vasilyevich, sought a label for the great reign of Vladimir, but the Golden Horde Khan Dzhanibek sent the label to Ivan II of Moscow. June 22, 1360 Dmitry Konstantinovich entered Vladimir.
But he did not stay long as the Grand Duke of Vladimir. In 1362, another Saray ruler, Khan Murid, decided to transfer the label to the 12-year-old Prince of Moscow. At this time, Metropolitan Alexei, together with Dmitry, went to the most powerful Horde ruler: to the Black Sea Horde to Mamai, and he issued a label on behalf of his protege Khan Abdullah to Prince Dmitry for the great reign of Vladimir (1363). At the same time, they agreed with Mamai to reduce the amount of tribute that the lands of the Vladimir reign should pay to the Horde. Having learned about this, Khan Murid again gave a label to Dmitry Konstantinovich. However, the Moscow army forced Dmitry Konstantinovich of the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod prince to leave the nominal capital of North-Eastern Rus'.
Dmitry Konstantinovich was not going to give up. However, from the time of Ivan Kalita, the Moscow princes owned the Vladimir label, and in Rus' they gradually began to look at them as the legitimate owners of the Vladimir grand-ducal table. Even the younger brother of Dmitry Konstantinovich of Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod, Boris, seeing the preparations of the “oldest brother” for a war with Moscow, said that he started it in vain and the label “cannot be kept”. In addition to military clashes between Moscow and Suzdal, there was a diplomatic struggle. The son of Dmitry Konstantinovich Vasily went in 1364 to the Horde to the new Khan Aziz, wanting to bargain for a label for his father. But Moscow diplomacy did not doze off, and as a result, the label remained with Moscow.
There was no big war between Moscow and Suzdal either. While Dmitry Konstantinovich was dreaming of the great princedom of Vladimir, his younger brother Boris almost stole the grand princely Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod table from him. On June 2, 1365, the elder Konstantinovich died - Andrei, the Gorodetsky specific prince Boris entered Nizhny Novgorod and “out of line” declared himself the Grand Duke. Dmitry Konstantinovich was forced to seek help from yesterday's opponent Dmitry Moskovsky. When, in 1366, he was again brought from the Horde a label for the great reign of Vladimir, he abandoned it in favor of Dmitry of Moscow and recognized the 15-year-old Grand Duke of Moscow and Vladimir as "the elder brother." The military-political union of the two Dmitrievs was formalized by the marriage of the Moscow prince Dmitry with the daughter of Dmitry Konstantinovich Evdokia. The wedding took place on January 18, 1366. They played it in Kolomna, because. Moscow completely burned out from another fire. Even the oak Kremlin of Ivan Kalita could not resist, the walls of which were plastered with clay and whitewashed with lime.
Soon the Moscow army, led by Dmitry Ivanovich, marched to Nizhny Novgorod. The local boyars did not dare to fight for Boris, and everything ended in peace. The throne of Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod passed to the rightful heir Dmitry Konstantinovich.
However, young Prince Dmitry Ivanovich was engaged not only in the wedding and the struggle for the rights of his father-in-law at that time. He started a grandiose construction in Moscow. In the winter of 1367, “the great prince Dmitry Ivanovich,” the Rogozhskaya chronicle reports, “having fortune told with his brother Volodimir Andreevich and with all the elder boyars, he decided to set up a stone city of Moscow, and what he intended, he did” (PSRL. T. XV. Issue 1. P. 83. Translation into modern Russian by the author). Limestone stones for the construction of the Kremlin were transported on sleighs along the bed of the frozen Moscow River, and in the spring they were floated on rafts from the Myachkovsky quarries, which were located not far from Moscow.
It is not known for certain what the new Moscow Kremlin was like. Some historians believe that only the towers were made of stone, and the walls were wooden and only lined with limestone blocks. Other historians insist that the walls were also stone, and their construction was not completed in 1367, but gradually continued almost the entire reign of Dmitry Ivanovich. To prove their assumption, these researchers cite an annalistic report that the soldiers of Tokhtamysh during the siege of Moscow in 1382 by Muscovites “... from the walls of the zbish ..., even then the city was still low” (i.e. the walls were not completed and low ). Archeology has little to suggest to resolve this dispute of historians, because under Ivan III at the end of the 15th century. The Kremlin of Dmitry Donskoy was completely dismantled during the construction of a new brick fortress by Italian craftsmen.
One way or another, but by the end of the 1360s. the white-stone Moscow Kremlin turned out to be the most powerful fortress of North-Eastern Rus' and its first stone citadel. Previously, only Novgorod and Pskov in the North-West of Rus had stone citadel.
The stone Kremlin was very useful to Muscovites. 17-year-old Dmitry began to show himself as a decisive and independent prince. At first, as we have seen, he managed not only to defend his rights to the reign of Vladimir (that is, to become officially the eldest among other northeastern princes), but also to resolve the dispute between the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod princes. In 1367, Dmitry was not afraid to intervene in the strife of the Tver princes.
The specific Mikulinsky prince Mikhail Alexandrovich drove his uncle, Prince Vasily Mikhailovich of Kashin, from the grand princely Tver table. Dmitry Moskovsky decided to restore "justice". Vasily Kashinsky was an ally of Moscow, which was confirmed in 1349 by his marriage to Vasilisa, the daughter of the Moscow prince Simeon the Proud. Muscovites supported Vasily Kashinsky even during the previous strife in Tver, when his nephew (and older brother of Mikhail Alexandrovich) Vsevolod Alexandrovich Kholmsky challenged the throne of Tver. Mikhail Alexandrovich Tverskoy, the son and brother of the Grand Dukes of Tver and Vladimir executed in the Horde because of a dispute with Moscow, wanted to regain the grand duke's table of Tver. And then (as happened) he could think of a label for the great reign of Vladimir. Help him, as in his time and Vsevolod Aleksandrovich Kholmsky, was ready to provide a powerful Grand Duke of Lithuania and Russian Olgerd. The latter was married with a second marriage (1350) to Prince Mikhail's sister, Uliana.
In 1367, the Moscow-Tver war began, which lasted until 1375. First, in 1367, Vasily Kashinsky fought the Tver region with the Moscow troops, and Mikhail Alexandrovich fled to Lithuania to Olgerd. Soon, in 1368, Metropolitan Alexei invited Mikhail Alexandrovich of Tver to Moscow for an arbitration court, however, in Moscow, the prince of Tver was actually arrested. Only the arrival of three nobles of the Horde in Rus' forced the Muscovites to release Mikhail Tversky to freedom, forcing them to give up part of his lands. Frustrated, Mikhail again went to Olgerd.
In the same year, Olgerd invaded Moscow's possessions. In Moscow, they managed to send a guard regiment led by the boyar Dmitry Minin to meet him, and Prince Dmitry Ivanovich with his brother Vladimir Serpukhov and Metropolitan Alexei began to prepare their capital for a siege. The surrounding villages were burned. Their population with belongings was moved outside the Moscow fortress walls. Medieval wars in Europe were fought not so much by battles of opponents. This was just the tip of the then military iceberg. The main thing that the generals did was to break into foreign territory and begin to "empty" it: capture people, take away property and livestock. All this was taken away by the winner, and the buildings and crops of the enemy were burned. This is how the Russian princes acted in the role of military leaders when they fought with each other or with an external enemy. Undermining the economic potential of the enemy was the main chance for success.
On November 21, 1368, Olgerd defeated the Moscow guard regiment near the Trostna River. From the captives, he found out that the Grand Duke Dmitry was in Moscow, and, “wasteland” of the district, rushed to Moscow. The siege lasted 3 days and 3 nights, but the Lithuanian-Russian ruler could not take the new stone fortress on the move. For the first time in 40 years, the Moscow principality was devastated so that the Moscow chroniclers compared the invasion of Olgerd (“Lithuanianism”) with the Batu campaign.
It is interesting that the Western Russian chronicles, telling about the campaign of their prince, reported that "Rus went to Moscow and won." Olgerd's regiments consisted mainly of Western Russian soldiers. In general, as the Grand Duke of Lithuania and Russia, Olgerd was mainly engaged in Russian affairs, and his brother and de facto co-ruler Keistut Gediminovich ruled the Lithuanian possessions and fought with the crusaders for Zhmud, which was either in Lithuania, or captured by the Livonian Order.
As a result of the "Lithuanian" Muscovites were forced to return Gorodok and other lands taken away from him by Mikhail Tverskoy. However, Dmitry Moskovsky was not going to give up. In 1369, he attacked the principality of Smolensk, Olgerd's ally in the campaign against Moscow in 1368. Muscovites devastated the Smolensk volosts and set off to ravage the Bryansk lands, the possessions of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Russia. In 1370, the war with Mikhail of Tver resumed. Mikhail fled to Vilna, and Dmitry of Moscow, at the head of a strong army, set fire to the Tver cities of Zubtsov and Mikulin and many villages around them. With a great crowd, the Moscow regiments went home.
Olgerd, busy with the war with the crusaders, was able to respond to the blow of Dmitry of Moscow only at the end of 1370. The second “Lithuanianism” took place. Olgerd led the regiments of his sons and brothers, and the troops of the Grand Duke of Tver Mikhail and the Grand Duke of Smolensk Svyatoslav also marched with him. The campaign was not unexpected for the Muscovites. Prince Dmitry well prepared the border town of Volokolamsk to repel the attack.
In 1370, a two-day battle took place near Volokolamsk. From the Moscow side, he was led by Prince Vasily Ivanovich Berezuisky, who died from a wound received during the battle. Prince Vasily was on the bridge when an enemy soldier, who appeared under the bridge, pierced him from below with a spear. Unable to take Volokolamsk, Olgerd moved towards Moscow. In December 1370, his regiments appeared near the capital of Prince Dmitry. The new siege of Moscow by Olgerd lasted 8 days and also did not bring him success. The defense of Moscow was led this time by one 19-year-old great Moscow and Vladimir prince Dmitry. Metropolitan Alexei went to Nizhny Novgorod for help, and 15-year-old Prince Vladimir of Serpukhovskoy managed to go to the Grand Duke Oleg of Ryazan and bring Ryazan and Pronsk regiments from him to help. Vladimir occupied the town of Przemysl and was preparing to strike at the flank of Olgerd's army.
The failure near Moscow and the threat of a long war in the winter with the Muscovites and their allies forced Olgerd to negotiate. Olgerd and Dmitry agreed on a truce "until Peter's day." Also, according to some sources, there was talk of a possible future marriage of the cousin of Dmitry of Moscow, Prince Vladimir Andreevich Serpukhovsky, with Elena, the daughter of Olgerd and, accordingly, the niece of Prince Mikhail Alexandrovich of Tver. The marriage took place in the summer of 1371 and was arranged by Metropolitan Alexei at a time when Dmitry of Moscow was in the Horde. According to other sources, this marriage took place in 1372 and crowned another reconciliation between Olgerd and the Moscow princes. Leaving the Moscow lands in 1370, Olgerd, according to the chroniclers, walked "with feareniya”, “afraid of the chase”.
During the war with Mikhail Tverskoy, Dmitry Moskovsky's relations with the Horde became complicated, including the goodwill of the temnik Mamai to him. The Moscow prince turned out to be not at all the “ulusnik” that Mamai was counting on, giving him a label for a great reign at one time. In 1370, Mamai decided to transfer the label to the great reign of Vladimir to the Grand Duke of Tverskoy, Mikhail Alexandrovich. In 1371, Prince Mikhail went to the Horde for a label and spent two years (1371-1372) in military campaigns against Dmitry of Moscow. He devastated the Kostroma volost, took Mologa, Uglich and Bezhetsk. Together with Keistut Gediminovich and Andrei Olgerdovich, he tried to capture Pereyaslavl Zalessky. “He took the city of Dmitrov, and the towns and villages were burnt, and there were many boyars and people with their wives and children brought to Tfer,” says the “neutral” chronicle of Abraham compiled in the Russian North. Wanting to put Novgorod the Great under his control, Mikhail Alexandrovich occupied Torzhok.
However, all these affairs of the Tver prince did not turn the tide of events in his favor. As early as 1371, the people of Vladimir did not let Prince Mikhail with his label into the city, and the Moscow prince Dmitry refused to swear allegiance to him. The Horde ambassador, who traveled with Mikhail to introduce him to the great reign of Vladimir, left for Moscow, where through him the Tver hostage prince Ivan, the son of Mikhail of Tver, was redeemed from the Horde. For prince Dmitry Moskovsky paid an amount exceeding the annual output from all the principalities of the great reign of Vladimir. Now Ivan Mikhailovich has become a hostage in Moscow. On the side of Mikhail Tverskoy, Olgerd again spoke, and Vladimir Serpukhovskoy came out to meet him. But they did not fight. Under Lubutsk, peace was finally concluded between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Russia on the one hand and the Grand Duchy of Moscow on the other (1372).
Now Mikhail Tversky had to rely only on his own strength. Meanwhile, Dmitry of Moscow managed to gather around him a coalition of all the princes of North-Eastern Rus', and besides, he regained the label for the great reign of Vladimir. The Grand Duke of Moscow Dmitry Ivanovich in 1371 went to Mamai with gifts, and on behalf of the new khan, 9-year-old Muhammad-Bulak, he gave him a label for the great reign of Vladimir. However, Prince Dmitry Ivanovich was in no hurry to collect tribute for the Mamaev Horde or help Muhammad-Bulak fight other Chingizids for the Sarai throne. By the way, the Grand Duke of Ryazansky Oleg Ivanovich stopped carrying the Horde exit to the Sarai. (The Ryazan principality was not included in the great reign of Vladimir, and the great princes of Vladimir were not "elder brothers", i.e. seniors for the Ryazan princes). In 1374, relations between Mamai and Dmitry of Moscow finally deteriorated.
At this time, Prince Dmitry Ivanovich, who had matured early, no longer needed boyar guardianship. Of course, not everyone liked this in Moscow. In 1374, two noble boyars fled from Moscow to Tver - Nekomat Surozhanin and Ivan Vasilievich Velyaminov (the son of the last Moscow thousand, Prince Dmitry decided not to appoint a new thousand boy). With the appearance of Moscow defectors in Tver, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Tverskoy launched a new campaign against Dmitry of Moscow. The prince of Tver again received a label for the great reign of Vladimir (1374) and attacked Torzhok and Uglich. However, almost all the princes of the Grand Duchy of Vladimir and even the Grand Duke of Smolensk Svyatoslav this time came out on the side of Moscow.
The khan’s label of the Tver prince, against the backdrop of the “great zamyat” that continued in the Horde, already meant little. In the Moscow volost - Pereyaslavl Zalessky in 1374, a congress of princes took place, who, as a number of historians suggest, advocated a joint struggle against the Horde. Not only the princes of Horde-controlled North-Eastern Rus' came to Pereyaslavl, but also princes from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Russia. After the congress, the father-in-law of Dmitry of Moscow, the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod prince Dmitry Konstantinovich ordered his son Vasily Kirdyapa to destroy the Horde ambassador Sarayka and his detachment, which was in Nizhny Novgorod, which was done. And in 1375, the Novgorod ushkuiniki raided Bulgar and Saray in 70 boats. Bulgar bought them off with tribute, and the capital of the Golden Horde was taken and plundered.
Mikhail's attack on Torzhok and Uglich provoked a counter campaign by the coalition led by Dmitry Moskovsky against Tver. Olgerd this time did not come into direct conflict with Moscow, but only set fire to the Smolensk border in revenge on Svyatoslav Smolensky for leaving the Smolensk-Tver union.
In 1375, Mikhail of Tverskoy was forced to recognize the label for the great reign of Vladimir as the "patrimony" of the Moscow princes (i.e., hereditary for the Moscow princes), he recognized Prince Dmitry Ivanovich as his "eldest brother" (i.e., became his vassal) and promised , "if you change the God Horde" and Dmitry of Moscow happens to fight with it, also fight with the Horde. This clause of the princely completion (contract) contained the first indication in history of Moscow's intention to stop being a "faithful ulusnik of the khans" and lead the struggle of the Russian principalities for liberation from the Horde yoke. It is interesting that in 1375 the Grand Duke of Ryazan Oleg Ivanovich acted as an arbitrator in the dispute between Mikhail of Tverskoy and Dmitry of Moscow.
In 1377, Prince Arapsha (Khan Arab Shah of the Blue Zayaitskaya Horde) was preparing for an attack on the Nizhny Novgorod lands. Some sources report that Arapsha served Mamai since 1376, according to others, he was hostile to Mamai. Information about the impending raid of the Horde leaked to Rus'. A united army of Nizhny Novgorod, Vladimir, Muscovites, Murom, Yaroslavl, Ryazan residents came out to meet Arapsha. Arapsha did not appear. The warriors took off their armor, amused themselves by hunting and feasting. The Russian camp was located on the left bank of the Pyana River, 100 versts from Nizhny Novgorod. Arapsha did not appear. Prince Dmitry of Moscow decided that his raid would not take place, and took his troops home. Meanwhile, the Mordovian princelings secretly brought the Horde detachment to the Russian camp. On August 2, 1377, the Tatars unexpectedly attacked the Moscow allies and inflicted a terrible defeat on them. “The Tale of the Massacre on the River Pyan”, one of the main sources about this event, attributes the defeat of the Russian regiments not to the people of Arapsha, but to the Tatars from the Mamaev Horde.
In The Tale of the Massacre on the River Drunk we read:
And that killed Prince Semyon Mikhailovich and many boyars. Prince Ivan Dmitreevich resorted in a hurry to the river to Drunk, we chase in vain, and plunged on a horse into the river and that utopia, and with him a multitude of boyars and servants and people were countless in the river. This malice is removed on the 2nd day of the month of August, in memory of the holy martyr Stephen, a week, at 6 o'clock in the afternoon from noon.
Tatarov, having defeated a Christian, and stasha on the bones, is full of all and leaving that robbery, while they themselves went to Novgorod to the Lower exile, without a trace. Prince Dmitry Kostyantinovich did not have the strength to fight against them, but he ran to Suzhdal. And the people of the townspeople of Novogorodstvo fled in court along the Volz to Gorodets. (An excerpt from "The Tale ..." is published according to the list of the Simeonovsky chronicle of the first half of the 16th century. BAN, 16.8.25. Separate corrections of erroneous spellings were made according to the Rogozhsky chronicler. RSL, f. 247 - collection of the Rogozhsky cemetery, No. 253).
On August 5, the Tatars broke into Nizhny Novgorod, left without protection, and robbed it for 2 days. Other cities also suffered, not to mention the villages.
The weakened Nizhny Novgorod borderlands tried to attack the Mordovian leaders. However, their raids were suppressed by Prince Boris Konstantinovich Gorodetsky, who in the winter of 1377, together with his nephew Semyon Dmitrievich (brother of the wife of Dmitry of Moscow) and the Moscow regiment under the leadership of the voivode Svibla, attacked the Mordovian land and "laid it empty."
The next year, 1378, Mamai sent a new army to Rus' under the command of Murza Begich. Moscow and Pronsk (from the Ryazan land) regiments went out to meet the enemy. According to one version, Andrei Olgerdovich, Prince of Polotsk, was also an ally of Moscow. Prince Dmitry Ivanovich managed to organize a good reconnaissance of the enemy's plans, and the Russians blocked the ford across the Oka tributary, the Vozha River. Here the Horde were going to cross. The Russians took up a good position on the hill. Begich did not dare to cross the Vozha for a long time.
The decisive clash with Mamai was approaching and the main event in the life of Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich, thanks to which he would become a great hero of Russian history.
In the autumn of 1380, Mamai led a 150,000-strong army to Rus'. In Cafe, a Genoese colony in the Crimea, Mamai hired a detachment of armored Western European infantry. Temnik also secured an alliance with the great Lithuanian prince Jagiello Olgerdovich and the Ryazan prince Oleg. These were unreliable allies.
Dmitry Donskoy meets allies in 1380, princes Andrei and Dmitry Olgerdovich. chronicle miniature
Dmitry Donskoy meets allies in 1380, princes Andrei and Dmitry Olgerdovich. chronicle miniature
Jagiello, who occupied the grand ducal throne after the death of Olgerd (1377), waited, wanting to know the winner, and was in no hurry to connect with Mamai. His elder brothers Andrey Polotsky and Dmitry Bryansky with their regiments went to Mamaia together with Dmitry Moskovsky. Andrei Polotsky was the eldest son of Olgerd from his first marriage to Princess Maria Yaroslavna of Vitebsk from the Rurik dynasty. Dmitry Bryansky was his own younger brother. From Dmitry Olgerdovich, Russian aristocrats, the princes Trubetskoy, descended.
Grand Duke Oleg of Ryazan was a forced ally of Mamai. After the battle on Pyan, his land was devastated by the Tatar army in 1378-1379. In 1380, Oleg pointed out the fords on the Oka to the Tatars, and sent news to Dmitry of Moscow about the advance of the Horde. Oleg himself "did not have time" to come to the connection with Mamai, although the Battle of Kulikovo took place precisely in his possessions.
A united Russian army, consisting of regiments and detachments of various Russian lands, came out to meet the Horde. The gathering place was Kolomna, which had belonged to Moscow since the beginning of the 14th century. In one of the annalistic reports about the Battle of Kulikovo, it was said that 100 thousand soldiers from the Moscow principality and 50 thousand from other Russian lands marched with Prince Dmitry. The "Legend of the Battle of Mamaev" testifies to more than 200 thousand Russian forces. The Nikon chronicle calls the figure of 400 thousand soldiers. The same sources estimate the number of the enemy from 100 to 300 thousand soldiers. N.M. Karamzin believed these data. At 100-150 thousand people and about the same number of Mamai warriors, the Great Soviet Encyclopedia estimates the strength of the parties in the Battle of Kulikovo (article by V.I. Buganov "Battle of Kulikovo". TSB. M., 1969-1978). However, even the predecessor of N.M. Karamzin, historian of the 18th century. V.N. Tatishchev doubted such a large number of fighters. He wrote about 60 thousand. Historian of the twentieth century, S.B. Veselovsky, in his latest research, was inclined to think that 5-6 thousand Russians and about the same number of Tatars fought in the Battle of Kulikovo. Most modern scientists give a range of estimates from 10 to 100 thousand participants in the battle on both sides.
But in the mass Russian historical consciousness, the idea of the grandeur of the battle near the Don in 1380 was strengthened. Never before had Rus' led such a number of soldiers to fight. Vigilantes and militias from many Russian lands went to the Don. True, there were no Tver, Ryazan and Nizhny Novgorod regiments among them, although it is possible that some residents of these lands participated in the battle on the Kulikovo field. So, although Mikhail Alexandrovich of Tverskoy did not send his troops, as the Moscow-Tver treaty of 1375 required, the Kashin and Kholmsky detachments from the Tver principality were in the united Russian army. And the author of the poem about the Battle of Kulikovo "Zadonshchina" was, most likely, a Bryansk boyar in the past, and then a Ryazan priest Safony, a direct eyewitness of the battle.
Dmitry of Moscow and his cousin Vladimir Serpukhovsky were blessed to fight the Tatars by the Russian monk-ascetic, the founder of the Trinity Monastery, Sergius of Radonezh. Through his mouth, the Russian Church, for the first time since the establishment of the dependence of the Russian lands on the Golden Horde khans, approved an open struggle against them. Perhaps that is why the memory of St. Sergius. Two monks of the Trinity Monastery - in the past boyars from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Russia - Peresvet and Oslyabya set off together with the Russian army towards the Horde. The blessing of Sergius was very important for Prince Dmitry of Moscow. He had a conflict with the new Russian Metropolitan Cyprian. The prince expelled the metropolitan from Moscow, and the metropolitan imposed an anathema (curse) on Dmitry.
The bloody battle happened on September 8, 1380 In addition to Dmitry of Moscow, the plan for the future battle was developed by all the princes and governors. On the advice of the Lithuanian princes, bridges across the Don were burned before the battle, so that no one would be tempted to flee from the battlefield. Obviously, the battle itself (at least in its decisive final stage) was led by the cousin of Dmitry Ivanovich of Moscow Vladimir Andreevich Serpukhovskoy and the governor Dmitry Bobrok-Volynsky. He moved from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Russia to the Moscow service in the 1360s. Some chronicles call him a prince. For Bobrok, Dmitry Moskovsky gave his sister Anna.
The Russian regiments lined up in their traditional formation - the eagle. But at the same time, about a third of the troops were left in an ambush in an oak forest. It was an unexpectedly large reserve. They were commanded by Vladimir Serpukhovskoy and Bobrok-Volynsky. In the center stood a large regiment, consisting mainly of Muscovites. They were commanded by the Moscow governor Timofei Velyaminov. In front of him, under the leadership of the princes Simeon Obolensky and Ivan Tarussky, there was an advanced regiment, and even further "watchmen" (scouts) Semyon Melik. The regiment of the right hand, which consisted mainly of heavily armed infantry from the Bryansk, Polotsk and other Western Russian lands, was commanded by Andrei Olgerdovich. The regiment of the left hand, from the formations of different Russian lands, was commanded by princes Vasily Yaroslavsky and Fedor Molozhsky.
The chronicle story "The Tale of the Battle of Mamaev" also describes the banner under which all Russian forces acted. It was a red (black) banner with the image of the Savior Not Made by Hands.
The battle began with a duel of heroes: the monk Alexander from the Trinity-Sergius Monastery (formerly a resident of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Russia, the Bryansk boyar - Peresvet) and the Horde hero Chelubey. Knights hit each other to death with spears. According to legend, another monk of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, Andrei (in the world - the Bryansk boyar Rodion Oslyabya), fought on the Kulikovo field. According to one version, he also died, according to another, he survived and even went later with a church embassy to Constantinople.
After the duel of the heroes, the Tatar horsemen went on the attack. They crushed the Russian Guard Regiment. Grand Duke Dmitry fought in the armor of a simple warrior in the Advanced Regiment. The soldiers of this regiment almost all fell. Dmitry was hardly found after the battle: the prince lay unconscious, crushed by a tree cut down in the battle. The Horde initially managed to break through the Russian left flank. Believing in a quick victory, the Horde rushed to the rear of the Big Regiment. However, here the reorganized Bolshoi Regiment and reserve detachments blocked their path.
Then, unexpectedly for the Tatars, a large Ambush Regiment fell upon them. According to chronicle versions, the Ambush Regiment stood on the left flank of the Russians, and the poem "Zadonshchina" places it on the right flank. One way or another, Mamai's nukers could not withstand the blow of the Ambush Regiment. They ran, sweeping away their own reinforcements. Neither the eastern cavalry nor the Genoese mercenary infantrymen saved Mamai. Mamai was defeated and fled. The Russians stood up, as they said then, “on the bones” (i.e., they left the battlefield behind them).
Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich, nicknamed Donskoy since then, did not pursue Mamai.
Near the Kalka River, the remnants of Mamaev's troops were defeated for the second time by Khan Tokhtamysh. Mamai tried to hide in the Genoese colony of Cafe (modern Feodosia in the eastern Crimea), but the townspeople killed the temnik, wanting to take possession of his treasury.
Prince Dmitry Donskoy safely returned with his army to Rus'. True, the Russian regiments suffered considerable losses. The chronicler wrote: "Oskuda bo the whole Russian land from the Mamaev battle beyond the Don."
The victory on the Kulikovo field did not bring liberation from the yoke of North-Eastern Rus'. Khan Tokhtamysh, who united the Golden Horde under his rule, demanded obedience from Rus'. In 1382, he took Moscow by deceit, burned it and killed the inhabitants.
Dmitry Donskoy, confident in the fortress of the stone Kremlin, left the capital. A direct clash between Prince Dmitry and Khan Tokhtamysh deprived him of the latitude of diplomatic maneuver in the event of Moscow-Horde negotiations, and captivity could drop the importance of the Moscow principality as the main center for the unification of North-Eastern Rus', which meant that the consolidation of Russian lands would have to start anew.
Muscovites were going to fight, despite the fact that Metropolitan Cyprian, the grand ducal family and individual boyars fled the city. The townspeople chose as their leader the 18-year-old Lithuanian prince Ostei, who happened to be in Moscow. He was either the younger son of Olgerd Gedeminovich, or his grandson, the son of Andrei Olgerdovich Polotsky. Ostei organized the defense, put “mattresses” on the walls (most likely they were stone-throwing machines, although some historians talk about cannons). Tokhtamysh's attempt to storm Moscow was repulsed. Then the Khan went to the trick. The Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod princes (brothers of the Moscow princess) who came with Tokhtamysh swore that the Tatars wanted to punish only the "disobedient" Prince Dmitry. And since he is not in the city, then the Horde will not touch anyone if the Muscovites voluntarily let the khan into the capital and bring gifts. Perhaps the Nizhny Novgorod princes themselves believed the words of Tokhtamysh. Muscovites paid with their lives for their trust. The delegation with gifts led by Ostey was hacked to death, the Horde broke into the city through the open gates, killed people, and burned the city.
Other Russian lands also suffered from the invasion of Tokhtamysh. The cousin of Dmitry Donskoy, Vladimir Serpukhovskoy, nicknamed Vladimir the Brave after the Battle of Kulikovo, came out with an army to meet the Khan. Without waiting for the battle with him, Khan Tokhtamysh went to the steppe.
Soon, the Grand Duke of Moscow and Vladimir Dmitry Donskoy was forced to recognize the power of Khan Tokhtamysh over himself and his land. In 1382, other Russian princes did not support the Grand Duke of Moscow and Vladimir as it was before the Battle of Kulikovo. Moscow could not yet cope with the united Golden Horde alone. However, Moscow remained the main city of North-Eastern Rus', because. Dmitry of Moscow received a label from Tokhtamysh for the great reign of Vladimir. Dmitry resumed the payment of tribute, his eldest son Vasily (future Grand Duke Vasily I) turned out to be a hostage of this in the Horde.
Dmitry Donskoy died unexpectedly on May 19, 1389, 39 years old. Back in 1388, he made a will, where he named his sons Vasily and Yuri as heirs to the grand prince's throne. This violated the order of the next succession to the throne, established in Rus' since 1054 and quarreled Dmitry Donskoy with Vladimir the Brave. A little later, the cousins reconciled, because. Dmitry promised to increase the inheritance of the Serpukhov prince at the expense of Volokolamsk and Rzhev. After the death of his father, Grand Duke Vasily I gave these cities to Vladimir Andreevich, but he did not start strife, recognizing his nephew as "the elder brother."