1444 event in Russia. Battle of Suzdal. The tragedy "Vasily II"
During the internecine war of 1425-53. Between Vasily II and his uncle Yuri Dmitrievich, and then the sons of the latter, Vasily Kosym and Dmitry Shemyaka, Moscow changed hands several times. During the wedding of Vasily II with the Serpukhov princess Maria Yaroslavna in February 1433, a quarrel between Vasily II and the Galician princes broke out; the army of Vasily II was defeated in the battle on the river. Klyazma (April 25, 1433), Vasily II fled from Moscow, which was occupied by Prince Yuri Dmitrievich. Discontent with the policy of Yuri Dmitrievich led to the departure of many service people from the city to Vasily II, who was in Kolomna. Soon, Yuri Dmitrievich was forced to leave Moscow. After a new defeat of Vasily II in the battle on March 20, 1434 and a week-long siege of Moscow on March 31, the city was again occupied by the supporters of Prince Yuri Dmitrievich, but after his imminent death (June 5, 1434), Vasily Kosoy declared himself the heir to the Moscow throne. A month later, "taking gold and silver, his father's treasury and the entire city stock", Vasily Kosoy went to Kostroma. Vasily II again entered Moscow and in January 1435 defeated the army of Vasily the Kosy. In 1436, by order of Vasily II, Dmitry Shemyaka, who had arrived in Moscow, was captured, and the army of Vasily the Kosoy was defeated on the river. Cherekhe, Vasily Kosoy himself was brought to Moscow and blinded on May 21, 1436. In 1439, when the army of Khan Ulu-Muhammad appeared “unknown” under the walls of Moscow, Vasily II left the city, leaving Yuri Patrikeev as governor, and went to the Volga; Ulu-Muhammad burned the Moscow townships and, after a ten-day siege of the city, retreated, taking full. During the campaign against Kazan in July 1445, the wounded Vasily II was taken prisoner; power in Moscow passed to Dmitry Shemyaka. Soon after, a fire broke out in the city, destroying almost all the wooden buildings; about 2 thousand people were killed, and the unrest of the townspeople began. In October 1445 Vasily II was released from captivity and arrived in Moscow accompanied by the Tatars; Dmitry Shemyaka fled to Uglich, where he gathered an army, and on February 12, 1446 captured Moscow; Vasily II was captured at the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, taken to Moscow, blinded (hence the nickname Dark) and exiled to Uglich. But already in December 1446 Vasily II again occupied Moscow, at the beginning of 1450 he inflicted a decisive defeat on Dmitry Shemyaka.
THE TRAGEDY "BASIL II"
If we were not writing another chapter of the popular study of Russian PR, but a tragedy in the spirit of Shakespeare - under a completely Shakespearean title - then it should begin with the characters ...
Vasily II the Dark - Grand Duke of Moscow (1425-1462, intermittently). He lost the throne several times, and then was blinded by Shemyaka (1446). After that, he was nicknamed the Dark. This nickname is tragic and respectful. The people saw in him a legitimate sovereign.
Sofya Vitovtovna is his mother. Lithuanian by nationality. A determined woman.
Yuri Galitsky - Grand Duke of Moscow (1433-1434), uncle of Vasily II.
Vasily Kosoy - Grand Duke of Moscow (1434, one month old), son of Yuri Galitsky, respectively, a cousin of Vasily II. He was blinded by Basil II (1436), for which he received his unsympathetic nickname. The people did not like him.
Dmitry Shemyaka - Grand Duke of Moscow (1446-1447), also the son of Yuri Galitsky. Blinded in revenge for his brother Vasily II himself. Was poisoned.
The circle is complete. Blinding, poisoning. Grim enough. But it all started with a partly comic episode. Shakespeare liked to insert such sideshows into his tragedies. Unfortunately, Russian history was not familiar to him, otherwise, instead of King Lear, we would now go to see Vasily II.
Medinsky V.R. Peculiarities of national PR. PRavdivaya history of Russia from Rurik to Peter. M., 2010
CHRESTOMATIYNY EPISODE
But while Ivan Dimitrievich urged Yuri to renew old claims, in Moscow Yuri's sons - Vasily Kosoy and Dimitri Shemyak - feasted at the grand ducal wedding. Vasily Kosoy arrived in a rich gold belt, seated with expensive stones. The old boyar Peter Konstantinovich told the history of this belt to the grand-ducal mother, Sofya Vitovtovna, an interesting story: this belt was given by the Suzdal prince Dimitri Konstantinovich as a dowry for his daughter Evdokia, who was going to marry Dimitri Donskoy; the last thousand Vasily Velyaminov, who was of great importance at the prince's wedding, replaced this belt with another, of a lower price, and the real one gave it to his son Nikolai, behind whom was another daughter of Prince Dimitri of Suzdal, Marya. Nikolai Velyaminov also gave the belt as a dowry for his daughter, who married our boyar, Ivan Dimitrievich; Ivan gave it as a dowry for his daughter to Prince Andrey, the son of Vladimir Andreyevich, and after Andreeva's death, betrothed his daughter, and his granddaughter for Vasily Kosoy, gave the groom a belt, in which he appeared at the wedding of the Grand Duke. Sofya Vitovtovna, having learned that she was on Kos, in front of everyone, took it off the prince as the property of her family, which illegally passed into someone else's. The Yuryevichs, offended by such shame, immediately left Moscow, and this served as a pretext for war.
SHEMYAKIN COURT
Shemyakin court (the court is violent, dishonest).
This is Sidorov's truth and Shemyakin's court.
Wed The spirit of these martyrs was raised, revised; Shemyakinsky sentences were canceled and the good name and honor of these innocent victims of falsehood ... were restored ...
N. Makarov. Memories. Preface.
Dmitri Shemyaka (1446) dazzled Vasily Temnago and took over the throne (deposed in 1450).
Wed From this time in great Russia for every judge and admirer, she was nicknamed Shemyakin Sud in reproaches.
Collection of figurative words and parables. 1904
RETURN OF THE STATE
On July 7, 1445, in the battle of Suzdal with the sons of Ulug-Muhammad, the Grand Duke suffered an unexpected defeat, was wounded and taken prisoner. 1 oct. In 1445 he was released from captivity with the obligation to pay a huge ransom, together with him the Horde tribute collectors arrived in North-Eastern Russia.
The incident dealt a strong blow to the authority of Vasily Vasilyevich. Part of Russian society - representatives of the nobility, Moscow merchants and even some monks of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery - began to lean towards the idea that Dmitry Shemyaka could become the best bearer of the grand dignity. The organizers of the conspiracy against the Grand Duke were Dmitry Shemyaka and John Mozhaisky. During a pilgrimage trip to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, Vasily Vasilyevich was seized by the conspirators and on February 16, 1446, blinded (hence his nickname - Dark) in Moscow, in the courtyard of Shemyaka in the Kremlin. The Grand Duke's table was occupied by Dmitry Shemyaka, the former Grand Duke was imprisoned in Uglich.
Faced with significant resistance and church disapproval of his actions, Shemyaka was forced to release Vasily Vasilyevich and his family from prison. At the meeting of the clergy in the fall of 1446, a reconciliation of the princes took place. Soon, however, the abbot of the Kirillov monastery Trifon freed Vasily Vasilyevich from his oath. After this, the Grand Duke began to patronize the disciples of the Monk Cyril of Belozersk.
From Vologda, not wanting to obey Shemyaka, Vasily Vasilyevich went to Tver to the Grand Duke Boris Alexandrovich, who offered him help. The union was sealed by the marriage of the daughter of the Tver prince Maria and the eldest son of Vasily Vasilyevich - John III Vasilyevich. Boyars and boyar children who refused to serve Shemyaka began to come to Tver. The Horde princes Kasim and Yakub, the sons of Ulug-Muhammad, expelled by their brother, offered their services to Vasily Vasilyevich. On the night of Christmas 1446, the Moscow-Tver army under the command of the Moscow boyar MB Pleshcheev suddenly seized Moscow. A new war began. In order to win over the appanage princes, the Grand Duke made them new awards: the brother of the Grand Duke's wife Vasily Yaroslavich Serpukhovskoy received Dmitrov, John Mozhaisky - Bezhetsky Verkh and half of Zaozerye, the other half of Zaozerye received his younger brother Mikhail Andreevich Vereisky.
After the return of Vasily Vasilyevich to Moscow, the Russian clergy actively contributed to strengthening the power of the Grand Duke for an early end to the feudal war. An important step in this direction was the letter sent on December 29, 1447 to Dmitry Shemyaka from Russian bishops and abbots of monasteries. Shemyaka was given an ultimatum: in a short period of time to "reform" before the Grand Duke, otherwise he would be excommunicated from the Church. At the beginning of 1448 Shemyaka and his ally John Mozhaisky were forced to give the Grand Duke "cursed letters", which indicated that on those who had violated their obligations of loyalty to the Grand Duke, "do not awaken the mercy of God and His Most Pure Mother of God, and the prayers of the great wonder-makers our land ”, and“ blessings of all, the bishop of the Russian land ”.
When this agreement was also violated, the clergy of the Moscow Metropolitanate began to regard Shemyaka as excommunicated from the Church, communication with which Christians are prohibited. In the campaign against Galich, the specific capital of Shemyaki, undertaken by Vasily Vasilyevich in the spring of 1449, the Grand Duke was accompanied by the recently appointed Metropolitan Jonah and the bishops. In January of the next year, Vasily Vasilyevich's troops took the city, Shemyaka fled to Veliky Novgorod, where he found help and support, military operations moved to the lands of the Russian North. Captured by Shemyaka, Perm Bishop of St. Pitirim refused to remove the excommunication from him. When the inhabitants of Vyatka, together with the Galich prince, began to attack the lands of Vasily Vasilyevich, Met. Jonah threatened to excommunicate them from the Church, and to the priests he promised to defrock them if they did not stop acting together "with the Church excommunicated from God with Prince Dmitry Shemyaka." At the same time, the saint turned with a letter to Archbishop Euthymius II of Novgorod and the inhabitants of Veliky Novgorod, demanding not only to refuse Shemyaka support, but also with him “neither eat nor drink,” since he “excommunicated himself from Christianity by his fratricide, their betrayal. " After the death of Dmitry Shemyaka, who was poisoned in 1453 by order of Vasily Vasilyevich in Veliky Novgorod, Metropolitan Jonah forbade commemoration of the Galich prince at funeral services.
P.P. Chistyakov At the wedding of Grand Duke Vasily Vasilyevich the Dark, Grand Duchess Sofya Vitovtovna takes away from Prince Vasily Kosyi, Shemyaka's brother, a belt with precious stones that once belonged to which the Yuryevichs took possession of the wrong (fragment). 1861
Vasily II Vasilyevich the Dark (10th of March (1415-03-10 ) - March 27, Moscow) - the Grand Duke of Moscow since 1425, the fifth (younger) son of the Grand Duke of Vladimir and Moscow Vasily I Dmitrievich and Sofia Vitovtovna.
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At the beginning of 1415, before his birth, his mother Sophia became very ill and was dying. However, she soon recovered.
After the death in 1430 of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Vitovt, grandfather of Vasily II, a coalition of appanage princes headed by his uncle, Prince of Zvenigorod Yuri Dmitrievich and his sons Vasily Kosym and Dmitry Shemyaka, opposed him. During the war, complicated by the simultaneous struggle with Kazan and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, power several times passed to the Galich-Mer branch of the Moscow house, which was supported by Novgorod and temporarily Tver.
On February 8, 1433, Vasily Vasilyevich's wedding with Maria Yaroslavna took place in Moscow. Prince Dmitry arrived at the wedding together with his brother Vasily (Yuri Dmitrievich and Dmitry Krasny were absent). During the celebration, Zakhary Koshkin (according to another version - Pyotr Dobrynsky) "recognized" the precious belt on Vasily Yurievich: the belt was allegedly stolen from Grand Duke Dmitry Donskoy during his wedding with Evdokia Dmitrievna in Kolomna and later came to Vasily Kosoy. Sophia Vitovtovna, who was present at the celebration, tore off the belt from Vasily Yuryevich.
In 1433, Prince Yuri captured Moscow, but later, due to the sparsely populated population (Vasily II urged all Muscovites to go to Kolomna for a while), he was forced to renounce the Moscow throne. Soon Vasily II received the title of Prince Kolomensky. "This city became the true capital of the great reign and crowded and noisy" - describes the historian N. M. Karamzin to Kolomna of that time. Kolomna served as the center of the united forces that sympathized with the Grand Duke in his policy of “gathering Rus”. Many residents left Moscow, refusing to serve Prince Yuri, and went to Kolomna. The streets of Kolomna were crowded with carts, the city for some time turned into the capital of North-Eastern Russia with almost all the administrative, economic and political state. Having received support, Vasily was able to regain the throne, but during the war he lost it several more times.
On July 7, 1445, in a battle near the outskirts of Suzdal, Vasily II with the united Russian troops was defeated by the Kazan army under the command of the Kazan princes - Makhmud and Yakub (sons of Khan Ulu-Muhammad), as a result, Vasily II himself and his cousin Mikhail Vereisky were taken to captured, but on October 1, 1445, they were released. There is no exact data on the conditions of release, but it was a large amount, and a number of cities were given for feeding.
Also, under the terms of this enslaving treaty, according to some sources, the Kasimov Khanate was created within Russia, in Meshchera, the first khan of which was the son of Ulu-Muhammad - Tsarevich Kasim.
In 1446 Vasily II was captured in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra and on February 16 at night on behalf of Dmitry Yuryevich Shemyaka, Ivan Mozhaisky and Boris Tversky, who, as the historian N.M. Karamzin writes, told him to say “Why do you love Tatars and give them Russians cities to feed? Why do you shower the unbelievers with Christian silver and gold? Why do you exhaust the people with taxes? Why did he blinded our brother, Vasily the Kosoy? ", He was blinded, which is why he received the nickname" Dark ", after which he was sent with his wife to Uglich, and his mother Sofya Vitovtovna was sent to Chukhloma. In 1447, Vasily visited the Ferapontov Monastery and received the blessing of Hegumen Martinian on a campaign against Dmitry Shemyaka, who seized Moscow.
With great difficulty, he regained the Moscow throne. It is noteworthy that during the short reign of Dmitry Shemyaka, coins were issued with the inscription "Lord of all Russian land." Thus, it is possible that Dmitry Yuryevich became the first Grand Duke in the history of Moscow to use the combination "Lord of the Russian Land" as an official title on his coins. After the return of the Grand princely throne, Vasily II continued to mint coins with his own name, but using the same title "ruler of all Russia".
Foreign policy
Relations with Lithuania and Novgorod
After the invasion of the Pskov land in 1426, Vitovt, having not achieved success, began negotiations with the Pskovites, allies of Vasily II. In order to soften the conditions of peace, Vasily sent his ambassador, Alexander Vladimirovich Lykov, to Vitovt. Relations between Pskov and Lithuania, however, continued to remain tense after the conclusion of the armistice.
Realizing the inevitability of a new clash with Vasily Kosym, Vasily II tried to normalize relations with the Novgorod Republic. In the winter of 1435-1436. he ceded part of the disputed lands to the Novgorodians, pledging to send his people to delimit the lands. After the victory over Vasily Kosim, the Grand Duke refused to fulfill his previous obligations. Nevertheless, Novgorodians, wishing to preserve their independence in international relations, did not resist Moscow's policy (for example, in the spring of 1437, Novgorod, without resistance, paid Moscow "black forest" - one of the heaviest taxes).
In 1440, after the death of the Grand Duke Sigismund at the hands of conspirators, Kazimir Jagailovich (since 1447 - the Polish king) ascended the Lithuanian throne. Soon a quarrel broke out in Lithuania between Prince Yuri Semyonovich (Lugvenievich) and Casimir IV. After the first unsuccessful attempt, Yuri, who had established himself in Smolensk, was knocked out by Kazimir, and Yuri fled to Moscow. The "pro-Russian" party of Lithuania was among the opponents of Casimir IV.
Novgorodians and Pskovs hastened to conclude treaties with Casimir IV. In response to this, Vasily II launched a campaign against the Novgorod Republic in the winter of 1440-1441. His Pskov allies ravaged the Novgorod land. Vasily II captured the Demon and ruined a number of Novgorod volosts. In response to this, the Novgorodians also organized a number of ruinous campaigns into the grand ducal domain. Soon the Novgorod Archbishop Euthymius and the Grand Duke (together with the people of Pskov) concluded a peace treaty, according to which Novgorod paid Moscow a huge ransom (8,000 rubles).
The foreign policy isolation of Dmitry Shemyaka and the Novgorod Republic, in which he strengthened after the loss of the Moscow reign, was facilitated by the peace treaty of Basil II with the Polish king and Grand Duke of Lithuania Casimir IV of 1449. In 1453 Dmitry Shemyaka was poisoned, and in 1456 the Novgorod Republic was forced to admit its dependence on Moscow under the Yazhelbitsky Treaty.
At the same time, Vasily pledged not to support Mikhail Sigismundovich, who, after the death of Svidrigail Olgerdovich, headed that part of the Lithuanian-Russian nobility that opposed the strengthening of the influence of Polish feudal lords and the Catholic Church on the lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and recognized the power of Casimir in all Russian-Lithuanian lands.
Relations with the Horde
The relations of the Moscow principality with the Horde were also tense. After a hard war with Tsarevich Seid-Akhmet, Ulu-Muhammad with small forces located near the town of Belev, vassal to Lithuania. Due to the importance of the city in economic and strategic relations, Vasily II in 1437 sent troops against the khan, headed by Dmitry Yuryevich Shemyaka and Dmitry Yuryevich Krasny. Stretching their way with robberies and robberies, the princes, reaching Belev, overthrew the Tatars, forcing them to seek refuge in the city. Despite the fact that the attempt to seize the city for the Moscow governors was unsuccessful, the next day the Tatars entered into negotiations. Relying on their own strength, the governors broke off negotiations and on December 5 resumed the battle. The Russian regiments were defeated. The troops of Ulu-Muhammad retreated from Belev.
Impressed by the success at Belev, Ulu-Muhammad approached Moscow on July 3, 1439. Vasily II, not ready to repulse enemy troops, left Moscow, entrusting the responsibility for the defense of the city to the governor Yuri Patrikeevich. Unable to capture the city, Ulu-Muhammad, having stood near Moscow for 10 days, turned back, plundering the surroundings.
Tatar raids on Russian lands did not stop, becoming more frequent at the end of 1443 due to severe frosts. In the end, the recent enemy of Russia, Tsarevich Mustafa, due to the difficult living conditions in the steppe, settled in Ryazan. Not wanting to endure the presence of the Tatars on their lands, Vasily II set out on a campaign against the intruders, and the combined Russian-Mordovian troops defeated the Tatar army in the battle on the Listani River. Prince Mustafa was killed. It was during this battle that Fyodor Vasilyevich Basenok first distinguished himself.
By the mid-1440s, Ulu-Muhammad's raids on Russia became noticeably more frequent, and in 1444 the Khan began to make plans to annex Nizhny Novgorod, which was facilitated by the close ties of the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod princes with the Horde. Between the great Moscow prince Vasily II and the Kazan Khan, a fierce struggle unfolded for Nizhny Novgorod, which was then a rich Volga city and an important strategic center. In the winter of 1444, the Khan, having captured Nizhny Novgorod, moved even further, capturing Murom. In response to these actions, Vasily II gathered troops and set out from Moscow during Epiphany. Basil II, according to the chronicle sources, had impressive forces, in connection with which the khan did not dare to engage in battle and retreated to Nizhny Novgorod. Soon the city was recaptured, and the Tatars were defeated near Murom and Gorokhovets. Having successfully completed the campaign, the Grand Duke returned to Moscow.
In the spring of 1445, Khan Ulu-Muhammad sent his sons Mamutyak and Yakub on a campaign against Russia. Upon learning of this, Vasily II did not attach great importance to this event, as he was reassured by the successes of the past year. From Moscow, the Grand Duke set out for Yuryev, where the governors Fyodor Dolgoldov and Yuri Dranitsa then arrived, leaving Nizhny Novgorod. The campaign was poorly organized: Princes Ivan and Mikhail Andreevich and Vasily Yaroslavich arrived at the Grand Duke with small forces, and Dmitry Shemyaka did not take part in the campaign at all. The army of the Grand Duke suffered a catastrophic defeat in the battle of Suzdal. Vasily II was captured, but was released on October 1. Dmitry Shemyaka briefly established himself on the throne. A large ransom was promised for Vasily II. In addition, the Tatar feudal lords were given "feeding" - the right to extortion from the population of Russia. On November 17, 1445, Vasily II returned to Moscow, but was greeted coldly, aloof and hostile.
In 1447, Dmitry Shemyaka, who reigned in Novgorod, refused to send tribute to the Horde, after which Vasily also refused it. From 1449 to 1459, there was a series of invasions by the horde of Seyid-Ahmed, which did not bring decisive results. In particular, in 1450, the Horde were defeated on the Bityuga River in the middle reaches of the Don during a deep Moscow pre-emptive campaign, and in 1451 Moscow was besieged by the Tatars and its settlement was burned.
Board results
Vasily II liquidated almost all the small estates within the Moscow principality and strengthened the grand ducal power. As a result of a series of campaigns in 144? -1460, the dependence on Moscow of the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod principality, the Novgorod land, Pskov and Vyatka land increased. By order of Basil II, the Russian Bishop Jonah was elected Metropolitan (1448). He was ordained metropolitan not by the Patriarch of Constantinople, but by a council of Russian bishops, which became the beginning of the independence of the Russian Church from the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
A few days before his death, he ordered the execution of the children of the boyar Borovsk Prince Vasily, suspected of conspiracy.
Vasily II was ill dry disease (tuberculosis). He ordered to treat himself in the usual way at that time: several times to light it on different parts of the body
(1238) - Chernigov (1239) - Kiev (1240) - Nevryuev's army (1252) - Kuremsin's army (1252-55) - Tugovaya mountain (1257) - Dyudenyev's army (1293) - Bortenevo (1317) - Tver (1327) - Blue Waters (1362) - Shishevsky forest (1365) - Piana (1367) - Bulgaria (1376) - Pyana (1377) - Vozha (1378) - Kulikovo field (1380) - Moscow (1382) - Vorskla (1399) - Moscow ( 1408) - Kiev (1416) - Belyov (1437) - Moscow (1439) - Listan (1444) - Suzdal (1445) - Bityug (1450) - Moscow (1451) - Aleksin (1472) - Ugra (1480)
Battle of Suzdal - a battle that took place on July 7, 1445 near Suzdal between the troops of the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily II the Dark and the Kazan Tatars led by the princes Mamutyak and Yakub, sent to Russia by Khan Ulu-Muhammad. The result of the battle was the complete defeat of the Moscow army and the capture of the Grand Duke. The battle decided the outcome of an unsuccessful campaign for Vasily II against the Kazan Tatars and had dire consequences for the Moscow principality.
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✪ Intelligence questioning: Klim Zhukov about the Lipitsk battle of 1216
✪ Intelligence questioning: Klim Zhukov about the Rakovor massacre
✪ Intelligence questioning: Klim Zhukov about Vladimir-Suzdal Rus (continued)
✪ Intelligence questioning: Klim Zhukov about the battle near Russa
✪ Political (feudal) fragmentation in Russia. Rostov-Suzdal land in the XII - XIII centuries.
Subtitles
I welcome you categorically! Klim Sanych, good afternoon. Good afternoon, hello everyone. What have you prepared today? I propose to start the second series about the great battles, because, I must admit, I was very tired of the details of the complex Russian history from the beginning to the very Mongols. Firstly, I want to take a break on this matter and see how at this time, described by us in the milestones of Russian history, they fought, what was happening there interesting on the military fields. In a word, once again to great battles! There were many of them. I'll tell you honestly: all these Mstislavichi and Yaroslavichi frankly pulled up. There are so many of them - I didn't even know. And everyone has the same surname. Yes. I'm confused. You can't even tell by your last name. Then, if you want, I will tell you the secret of how to simply memorize them, that is, of course, not easy, but possible to memorize, because it is unrealistic to simply learn 18 generations of Rurik in a row, unless, of course, you are an autist with a phenomenal memory. I know special techniques. Insofar as in pre-revolutionary Russia everyone was forced to learn this, generations of various lazy goons have developed special systems for how to memorize them, and I think that many coped. Everything is much simpler there - they just need to be divided into territorial districts, because the first Rurik people from Rurik, if there was one at all, to Yaroslav the Wise, there is nothing to teach there - there were few of them. Well, then you just need to look from Yaroslav, who is in what city, and you will immediately understand that this is Chernigov - Olgovichi live here, and this is Smolensk - Rostislavichi live here, well, this, of course, Vladimir - Yuryevich Dolgorukovichi live here, and so on. And so approximately, it is clear that it will be quite difficult to keep this in mind all the time, but at least approximately it will be possible to understand that the Mstislavichs are those Yuryevichs, and nothing complicated. We will try. So what do we have today? Today I wanted to talk about the Lipitsk battle of 1216 - this is such a discord in the nest of Vsevolod the Big Nest, where his chicks pecked, for nothing. This is a battle that ended one of the great strife in the North-East and North-West of Russia, in which very large forces converged for their time, and these forces were really so great, for their, I emphasize, time, as in the chronicles news, and even in the people's memory there was a great echo of this. And even, as the researchers of the chronicle monuments say, a certain number of epics and, possibly, some kind of druzhina songs, legends were compiled, i.e. military stories about this. Because, apparently, some late chronicle news contains fragments of precisely these very squad songs that told, like "The Lay of Igor's Host," about this battle. Naturally, since everything big is seen only from afar, as soon as the chronicles began to be 150-250-300 years away from the event, interesting details began to emerge that were not present in the original editions of the story about this battle. I'm sorry, I'll make an important remark: 300 years ago - it's like now to clarify some details of the Battle of Poltava, right? Something like this. Those. here you were, picking your mustache with a feather and suddenly realized that in the Battle of Poltava, not everything was clean. I'll clarify now. I'll clarify now, yes. I found, respectively, a descendant of a participant in the Battle of Poltava - it is clear that the great-great-great-great-grandson of the great-great-great-great-grandfather would definitely not lie, he asked: how was it there? Grandpa told me. My grandfather told me ... Yes, and, what is typical, these are the Middle Ages, when there was no developed information culture, and therefore all the information that was transmitted was 99% transmitted orally, and therefore now grandfather will not tell us anything about Poltava, but then I could very much even tell, in fact, only it was not my grandfather who participated in this battle, but the grandfather of the grandfather's grandfather's grandfather, so many transmission links passed that it is, frankly, difficult to judge the quality of the information at the output. This is of great value as an ethnographic material, but as a historical source regarding the details of the incident itself, its value is very doubtful, and it must be approached with extreme caution. Therefore, only skaldic verses with terrible dimensions, because nothing can be changed there. Yes, if you redo something, then everything is already - everything will fall, everything will break. So, about this very battle of Lipitsa: this is also not only one of the most beloved battles of the developed Middle Ages of Russia for the medieval authors themselves, who, apparently, frankly, admired these years of the pre-Mongol knightly era, the highest dawn of Russian appanage principalities , but it is also a favorite battle of Russian military historians and historians in general, because if you take the entire corpus of chronicle information about this, you can glean such details that you generally stagger. There, it turns out, if you look at the whole complex of chronicles, it turns out that there was infantry - and it is said: "pawns", and, on both sides, some opposing and other opposing colleagues, it turns out, had infantry. The people's militia was recruited all in the villages and dopeshtsevyya, i.e. after driving people from the villages, 9233 people were killed there on the losing side. A lot of! It's not a lot, it's a monstrous amount! This is about the number of people who came to the Kulikovo battle in total, maybe a little less. Isn't there, isn't the word "bastard" used there? They were the ones who were scammed. Do not remember that. And what does the word "bastard" mean in a military sense? The bastard is the one who drags in. Actually: s-drag, this is s-vita usually. Those. like, for example, in our country, when I was still working in the church, they liked to say that there is a bishop such and such and his bastard, i.e. his entourage. Thus, everyone was very funny, and everyone understood that it was the man who spoke out in the old Russian manner, and did not want to offend this bishop at all, and even more so his people. Those. then this word had no negative connotation? None, it's just someone who walks in together. So, if 9,200 people were killed, and at the same time 60 were taken prisoner in total, then at least 2 times more people arrived there, i.e. 18 thousand on the one hand, which is not only a lot for the Middle Ages, but also a considerable number for the 17-18 centuries, because, for example, at Poltava, Charles XII, the Swedish king, had about 16 thousand troops, 16-17 thousand, and here, you know, in the Middle Ages the cavalry managed to bring such a number. Researcher Shkrabo, if I'm not mistaken, directly says that this figure, which we calculated, and he calculates just about 20-30 thousand people on one side, this is the figure only for those who participated in the clash, and if we take those who guarded the train , cooks, canteen women, you can safely increase it 2-3 times. Not bad. In a word, a very interesting battle, which is interesting not only for the vicissitudes of history that took place around it, not only for what happened on the battlefield, but also for the example of working with sources, how it developed over time, i.e. how people did it a long time ago, how people did it recently, and how we do it now. The oldest story about the Battle of Lipitsa is preserved in the Novgorod First Chronicle, which was finally completed in the 1240s, or, according to other researchers, in the 1260s, i.e. it is only 35-45 years after the battle itself, i.e. then, when the participants could still be alive. Let's define right away, firstly, the date when it was ... 1216. And topographically - where is it? This is the Lipica river. Is this not Lipetsk? No. This, in fact, the fight took place in the wrong place, it was all tied to civil strife in Northeastern Russia, as I said, when, I will tell you more about this a little later, but I will just remind you that we talked about this more than once when Vsevolod died. More Gnezdo, his sons Yuri and Konstantin quarreled for the great reign and involved in their quarrel everyone who could be involved from all sides, including Novgorodians, Smolyans, Belozertsians, Murom residents. .. As they say now, pulled up. They pulled everyone with them. I will tell you more precisely. So, perhaps, someone could still be alive, because although 35-45 years for the Middle Ages is a very long time, at least the children of those who participated there were as if they were strong and alive. Again, most likely, some kind of records were kept about this, because in fact the battle was very big, it was necessary to provide for all the people, i.e. there should have been some correspondence, sent out, at least some should be food invoices, i.e. people could at least use the archives not yet burnt. Our archives all burned wonderfully, and at that time, perhaps, there was still something left. The next chronicle story is the Novgorod Fourth Chronicle and the Novgorod Karamzin Chronicle, as well as the Sophia First Chronicle, well-known - all this refers to the 40-50s of the 15th century. It's more interesting there, it's more detailed there. It was there that information suddenly appeared about the pests who were driven out of the villages. This is not the case in the early story, but 250 years after the events, the monk chronicler, apparently, brought the reality, which was in the first half of the 13th century, in accordance with his ideas, because in the middle of the 15th century, this very army with to carry. Can't it be that he found some document that came down to him, and, without referring to it, brought this? Naturally, he would not refer, of course. The fact is that all these stories, if you tuck them into textual research, rely on the message of the Novgorod First Chronicle, they retell it in one way or another, and sometimes they directly or indirectly quote. And suddenly there are some details. This means that the Novgorod first chronicle was a protographer, and it is very doubtful that any particular documents would fall into the hands of the chronicler 250 years later regarding the same that the chronicler had in the middle of the 13th century. It looks, to put it mildly, strange, it's like a Stalinist historian writes about the Battle of Borodino: and they put large-caliber machine guns from the flanks, because it is obvious that there is nowhere without them. Because for a Stalinist historian it would be funny, but for a medieval person it was absolutely normal, because if a large-caliber machine gun were suddenly invented in the 15th century, he would have put them on the Lipetsk field with good reason. Well, because they do exist, and the ancestors were clearly no worse, on the contrary - the ancestors were definitely smarter, because the great-grandfather's behests are wow! That is, they would, of course, have large-caliber machine guns on the flanks, of course. All that the chroniclers could use, as I said, are most likely not some documents, these are some legends that reached that time, and their own logic is how he sees how this could happen event. Because if we look at any medieval miniature, we will see that an event, for example, that took place under Alexander the Great, is drawn on this miniature in the same way as the event of the 14th century is drawn, in the same material culture, in the same armor. They will certainly come up with a coat of arms for Alexander the Great, because everyone understands that Alexander the Great is a knight. How could a knight not conquer everything from Greece to India? Nonsense. Unthinkable! Therefore, he must be on horseback, with a spear - this was absolutely normal for a medieval person. We have not yet thought about the fact that 300 years ago there could be something different. It could only be better because before. And it got worse. And it only got worse. And now, in the Tver Chronicle, in general, already in the 16th century, and in the Ermolinskaya Chronicle, and in the Moscow Chronicle of the late 15th century, interesting figures suddenly begin to slip, because in the Novgorod First Chronicle there are also figures, and they are clearly overestimated - it’s like "10 thousand people "does not mean 10 thousand people, but simply" many ". This was the prince, he had a lot of people, but right there the prince came, he had 500 people - this means that he just had a few of them. Those. there were a lot and a little, you cannot take these figures as documented evidence of how many of them there were exactly, how much salary was allocated. Those. in fact, this one had more, and this one had less. Yes, and this one has much more, and this one has much less - like this. And how many there were exactly - God knows. Based on this message, one cannot make an unambiguous conclusion about what was for real. So, in the later chroniclers there is just a very interesting figure, in particular the figure of losses - 9233 people. Boris Aleksandrovich Rybakov, in his book "The Search for the Author" The Lay of Igor's Campaign "", which I recently showed, wrote that it is scary to read the messages of the chronicler: "On the field where the chicks of Vsevolod's Big Nest converged, when the battle died down, they collected and counted 9,233 warriors killed, while moans of the wounded and dying rushed over the field. "All this beautiful quote - Boris Alexandrovich just took it and honestly retold, competently translating into Russian what is written in the chronicler. And there it is written: they collected the corpses, counted - it turned out that there were 9,200 people, and then it was said that I could hear the groans of the wounded and the dying, that is, it is very difficult to imagine that they collected 9200 corpses and only then went to look at the wounded. And here it is exactly the opposite.This just suggests that these are chronicle news, which were compiled after a very long time by non-eyewitnesses and, most likely, people who do not understand anything at all in military affairs. how exactly this is described, it is important for them what it means. And it means exactly one thing - that this is civil strife, this is very bad, because it is people within the same family who fought to the death because of their father's inheritance, ditching a lot of people who were completely innocent of this inheritance. And the chronicler, in fact, already from the 13th century points out that, from his point of view, this is a big trouble, this is not good. Moreover, of course, the Novgorod Chronicle is entirely on the Novgorod side, of course, because all this is described from an extremely Novgorod-centric position, that where St. Sophia is, there is Novgorod, and those who are against Novgorod, if this is not an unambiguous evil, then they are mistaken and deluded people who need to point out their mistakes in a material way. We need help. Yes, help is needed. So, it all started with the fact that Vsevolod the Big Nest laid the nuclear one. a bomb under the century-old foundation of the Yuryevich state by rejecting time-honored universal democratic procedures and despising democratic ladder law, trying to totalitarianly transfer power to his own son. Voluntaristic. To transfer power to your own son in a totalitarian voluntarist way. And he passed it on, but not to that one, because the eldest son Konstantin wanted to rule in Rostov, let me remind you: Rostov is the oldest city in the Vladimir-Suzdal land, and Vladimir was the new capital. In Vladimir, Constantine, closely associated with the Rostov boyars, did not want to go, and in Vladimir, in the capital, his younger brother Yuri sat down, who had no right to the father's throne, not only in terms of the ladder, but in general in any way. Clever Vsevolod Bolshe Gnezdo legitimized his power through an agreement with the Vladimir veche, but when he died, it suddenly turned out that the elder brother Konstantin is more experienced, smarter, stronger, and he is more loved in Rostov than Yuri in Vladimir. And in general, he was shown the door. Because when the veche voted, everyone kept figs in their pockets, right? Well, this is not a fig, the fact is that when Constantine came with the army, it suddenly turned out that to fight - for what? It is not necessary, and in general, in the end, Yuri was forced to leave Vladimir. Well, of course, he remembered this, pulled up all the younger brothers whom he could reach, namely Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich, Ivan Vsevolodovich and, of course, Yaroslav Vsevolodovich - the future father of Alexander Nevsky, then he was still a very young man. He was born in 1191, which we get in 1212, 1213 and 1216, i.e. he was very young. He was young, hot and ready for undercover intrigues, as well as direct clashes with enemies. As a result, the war broke out. Everything, from the point of view of international internal Russian policy, was very much complicated by the Novgorod factor, because Novgorod, firstly, was at that time through the efforts of Andrei Yuryevich Bogolyubsky and Vsevolod Bolshe Nest in the orbit of the Vladimir-Suzdal policy almost completely and very much depended on its own southeastern neighbors. At the time of the events described, Mstislav Mstislavich Udaloy (Udatny) ruled there - a famous actively Russian Middle Ages, a great warrior, in general, such one of the real "knights" of Russian squads, who was very loved, who enjoyed great prestige not only in Novgorod. So, in 2015, Mstislav Mstislavich, apparently unwillingly, threw a huge armful of firewood into the furnace of the war flaring up in the northeast of Russia, because he told the people of Kiev that “I have a weapon in Russia, and you are free in princes ", i.e. he has business in Russia, and you can choose a prince for yourself, because in fact you can. In Russia it is understandable - he went to Kiev to put another prince on the Kiev throne, because at this time our favorite Rurik Rostislavich, who sat on the Kiev throne 7 times and finally sat down for the 7th time, dies. He died, and it was necessary to urgently appoint a new prince. As a matter of fact, Mstislav Mstislavich Udatny went to fight for Kiev once again, and the Novgorodians, who loved Mstislav very much, without any exaggeration, because if the prince himself left Novgorod in this way, not that the Novgorodians showed him the way, but he left, this means that the second time he will probably not return there, well, only if he does not conquer it, of course. Neither he nor his children, in general, is such a fact of contempt, especially since, apparently, a number, i.e. the term under the contract, Mstislav did not sit out, but still the Novgorodians appreciated him very much and decided to tie Mstislav to Novgorod, if possible, and took and summoned to reign the Pereyaslavl-Zalessky prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, who was married to Mstilava's daughter - Rostislav Mstislavovna Rurikovich. But then they did not guess, because despite the fact that he was a relative of Mstislav, he was, frankly speaking, not an easy person, and he immediately began to bring Novgorod to his hand, because it was the son of Vsevolod, the grandson of Yuri, therefore the grand-nephew of Andrei Bogolyubsky, he was used to the fact that the Novgorodians obey, but they did not obey, because they themselves invited him. This, as it seemed to them, was already a completely different time, both Vsevolod and Andrei had already died - you cannot bend them over the knee. Well, Yaroslav, without hesitation, right away ... It was not so! And immediately, there were well-wishers who, as the Novgorod Chronicle again informs us, began to denounce each other, and Yaroslav immediately began to disassemble these denunciations and punish them with terrible force. Firstly, he dismissed the thousand Yakun, the thousand the prime minister, and plundered his court, and he did not let the Novgorodians plunder, but he himself plundered, which was terribly simple for the Novgorodians, they had to plunder, of course. What disrespect for the fine folk customs! Yes, and the wife of the mayor, Yakun, was taken hostage, that if he suddenly decided to do something else, then let him know that it would necessarily result. And what could they have done with her, as with a hostage? They could kill as a relative of an enemy of the people. But in the end, Yakun ended up in Novotorzhsk and was going to complain, and to whom - to Yaroslav. Well, Yaroslav then put him in jail with his wife. With his wife. Well, naturally, with his wife, with Yakun's wife. Of course, not only Yaroslav himself was involved in this, but also a bunch of his officials who came from Vladimir. They brought the Novgorodians, who were generally carried out very easily, simply elementary. With half a turn. In general, they did not even need to be brought up, it was just necessary to wait - they themselves would have happened sooner or later, there was a riot every five years. But Yaroslav made every effort, and again, apparently, he also had daddy's damaged genes, he also planted a bomb under his own rule - this was Prusskaya Street in Novgorod, it was Novgorod Rublevka, a lot of noble boyars lived there, and they they simply killed the prince's henchman, the official Ostrat, and his son Lugota Ostratovich, after which suddenly Yaroslav realized that he had slightly gone too far and left for Torzhok himself. And here in Torzhok he planned, apparently, to strangle Novgorod with hunger. Firstly, and apparently, it is possible to assume that he had plans to make Torzhok the capital of the Novgorod land instead of Novgorod, because he was again a descendant of Yuri Dolgoruky, and Yuri Dolgoruky perfectly performed this trick in his Suzdal land. And why not crank it up here, all the more so, well, Novgorod is a river-sea gate, and at the same time, the gate to Novgorod is Torzhok. Again, the old worked-out system of the Yuryevichs: the Novgorodians are unhappy - we shut off Torzhok, and the bread does not come to you. And the bread stopped coming. At this time, as the chronicle describes, in March 1215 "the mraz was great" - the frost was great, and all the crops died. There was famine in Novgorod and it was absolutely dependent on food supplies. Yaroslav did not let the bread that went to Novgorod through Torzhok, and all the merchants who came from Novgorod were arrested and imprisoned right there in Torzhok. Moreover, the Novgorodians, of course, realized that they had to do something about it, and in general they had to put up with it, because everyone could die in the same way, in the end. They began to send ambassadors to him, and he began to arrest the ambassadors. I didn't speak to them at all, I just arrested them and that's it. Arrived - arrested, arrived - arrested. In the chronicle there is a whole list of them who came to the prison for nothing. By lawlessness. This was heard by Mstislav, who did all his business in Kiev and returned to Novgorod on February 11, 1216. Well, Mstislav, as an experienced politician, and not just a warrior, proclaimed a wonderful election program: "Either I will return the Novgorod husbands to the Novgorod volosts, or, I will lay my head for great Novgorod." Well, the electorate, of course, accepted the program with pleasure and said in response: "We are ready for life and death with you, prince." In general, let's face it, they had nowhere to go. Thus, Mstislav turned out to be a potential supporter of one of the warring parties in northeastern Russia. It is absolutely clear that Yaroslav did this in Novgorod absolutely for good reason, because he carefully chose the side for whom to speak: for Yuri, the younger heir who fought against the eldest heir Constantine, or for Constantine to speak. Yaroslav himself was the head of a very strong Pereyaslavl-Zalessky principality, it was a very strong, but far from the strongest principality. Far from being the strongest. Those. if he spoke only by the forces of his principality for one or another candidate, he could lose, and if he lost, he could find himself in a stupid situation. Therefore, he needed a decisive advantage, and he needed Novgorod precisely as a base of support, because Novgorod was several times larger than the Pereyalsavl-Zalessky principality and could deploy more troops. Therefore, he needed an absolutely obedient Novgorod. Moreover, if a candidate supported by Yaroslav had won, he would have found himself, with such help, owed a coffin to Yaroslav himself, because it is clear that if Yaroslav puts up such regiments in Pereyaslavl, and such a large regiment is, for example, Yuri, and they win, then Yaroslav turns out to be just a small henchman, without whom it would probably have been harder, but in the end they managed. And if he had deployed Novgorod troops, it would be a completely different matter, because the Novgorod city regiment and the Novgorod militia were at least no less than what the capital city of Vladimir could have set up. It turns out that they are equal partners. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand such a riot of Yaroslav in relation to Novgorod. Well, Mstislav, as I said, drove Yaroslav out of Novgorod, because it is understandable when he came there Mstislav and resumed a row with the Novgorodians, Yaroslav remained in Torzhok no longer at work, not a prince. He immediately turned out to be automatically the enemy of the one whom Yaroslav would choose as his allies. And by that time Yaroslav had made up his mind - Yuri Vsevolodovich became his ally. And Novgorod thus found itself directly involved in the conflict. In addition, the Smolensk, Smolensk, together with their prince were drawn into the conflict. And here comes a moment that is very important for understanding - the moment of mobilization, because the type of troops that prevails in the army, especially in the medieval army, and its very size, unambiguously depend on the nature of mobilization. Mobilization took place from February 11 to March 1, 1216. It turns out about a month - 28 days. Considering that they approached Mstislav's side ... firstly, Konstantin Vsevolodovich, of course, approached, most importantly, with the Rostov regiments. Konstantin, Mstislav, Vladimir Rurikovich from Smolensk with the Smolensk regiment, and Vsevolod Mstislavich is the son of a cousin of the Udaliy himself, i.e. the current ruling prince in Kiev Mstislav Romanovich the Old, just that same negative hero in the battle of Kalka, about which we spoke not so long ago. This is a very quick mobilization, it is only a month, and people managed to come in the end from ... and from Beoloozero, of course, they came, because Beloozero at that time was part of the Rostov principality. People came from very distant places, gathered quickly. Those. it was necessary first to send letters to everyone, these letters should have been received, and even if they immediately agreed, and there was no long diplomatic correspondence - they received letters, sent messengers, that yes, the team was accepted, we are entering. These are very impetuous actions, only horsemen could gather so quickly, moreover, feudal horsemen, professional warriors who were constantly ready for battle - what in the 16-17th century was called the "elective army", i.e. elite host, i.e. those who could go on a campaign, on a long campaign. Well, Yuri Vsevolodovich, firstly, supports Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, as an ally, sends him an army led by his younger brother Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich, and Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich, as it is written in the chronicle, brought 10 thousand people with him under Rzhev, who besieged him. Rzhev resisted the efforts of the garrison of 100 people, as the chronicler again tells us. Moreover, this is just the message of the Novgorod first chronicle. It is clear that 100 people 10 thousand people would never have kept, especially since Rzhev was not at all a powerful city, it was a very small fortress by that time. It is simply shown that there were more of these, and much less of these. Moreover, it is still possible to believe in a garrison of 100 people, but in the army of a younger brother of 10 thousand people is an unrealistic figure, it is just a message that there are many of them, everything. It was not possible to take Rzhev, Mstislav set out from Novgorod, and Prince Vladimir, who was at that time in Pskov, joined him, and the Pskov army marched out. Those. Novgorodians and Pskovians performed together. Yes, I’ll say right away that apart from those people who were engaged in denunciations, and when Yaroslav was expelled from Novgorod, they simply fled to him, i.e. there, up to 5 boyar corporations from Novgorod were pulled to Yaroslav, fearing the gratitude of expressive fellow citizens. Mstislav set out on a campaign, recaptured Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich from Rzhev. Mstislav Udatny / Udatny, they are all Mstislavs, Vladimirs, Mstislavichs there, so I will periodically say again and again that Mstislav Udatny. With Novgorodians. The Novgorodians expelled Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich from near Rzhev and went further into the Suzdal land in the direction of Yuri's headquarters. Moreover, Mstislav, in bed, was a knight, even in the chronicle it is said that this simply cannot be ignored, which means that it really was a very bright, noticeable, well-documented move - he offered peace. Suddenly. No, well, again, Mstislav was in fact such a powerful commander of the classical knightly medieval type with all its inherent advantages and disadvantages that if he defeated the enemy, he first of all, of course, offers him peace, especially since he is a close relative , after all, he fought with his son-in-law. Yes, and his son-in-law had his daughter, in fact, his own, with whom, of course, nothing bad could happen, because after all this is a feudal war, and just like that, to kill or do something else bad with his own wife, because of what - because of the war? Well, what are you talking about? But nevertheless, Rostislav Mstislavovna was with Yaroslav. Moreover, Yaroslav, being distracted a little to the side, is generally handsome, because when he began to strangle Novgorod with hunger, his wife was in Novgorod and was starving along with all the townspeople. Then he suddenly remembered something and sent his emissaries to take her out of there. But I didn't remember right away. I sat in Novotorzhka and thought: something was missing - either I didn't turn off the iron, or ... and where's your wife? A loving husband was, yes. Highly! He was just a little busy. But since Yuri was the eldest in the Vsevolodovich coalition by that time, because it is clear that Konstantin was on the side of Mstislav the Bold, more precisely, Mstislav the Udaloy was on the side of Constantine, Yuri said that he was not ready to conclude peace, because he needed to take power in the Vladimir-Suzdal land into their own hands, because his dad appointed his heir, planting an atomic bomb under the century-old power of the Yuryevichs. And such a viscous maneuverable offensive and counteroffensive began, very typical for the Middle Ages, because very small forces, which cannot even approximately form even a semblance of a front, begin to chase each other, naturally, burning everything along the way, because, of course, having defeated the enemy under Rzhev, to extend a noble hand to him with a proposal for peace is one thing, but to rob is completely different, to rob is good. Of course, there were clashes, in particular, Yaroslav's patrols on March 25 attacked the watchman Mstislav Udatny, who, as the chronicle says, consisted of 100 people, which, of course, is very unlikely. What is a watchman? Reconnaissance, distant siding. And most likely, these are the same people who were engaged in robbery, because reconnaissance and robbery go hand in hand: now you are scouting, looking - and already robbing. All the time in business. 100 people is a lot for such a detachment, but perhaps there really were 100. There was a clash, 7 warriors were killed and 33 were captured, and by that time Yaroslav himself had fled to Tver, then fled from Tver to Pereyaslavl, and in fact, it was here that it began ... there was an understanding that with these very throwing one after another nothing could be solved. Simply, on the one hand, apparently, Mstislav Udaloy was offended that he was so rejected, on the other hand, Yuri went to principle and was not ready to put up with anyone. On the third hand, Konstantin with the Rostovites, apparently, he was really under the strong influence of the Rostov boyars, he could not allow that at all, and he himself could not allow, of course, the younger brother to sit on his father's throne, and the Rostovites could not allow after all, Vladimir became the first city in the Suzdal land. And all this twisted the spring so tightly that it had to straighten only in a decisive collision. At the same time, Mstislav Udaloy once again tried to solve the matter peacefully, the last, so to speak, Chinese attempt. He sent a certain Sotsky Larion, also known from the Novgorod First Chronicle, with a proposal of this kind: “My Novgorod is there, and you shouldn’t have grabbed the Novgorodian men, robbed a lot of good, and the Novgorodians cry crying at you, and complain to me about insults from you. release the prisoners, son, and return the Novgorod volost - so let us make up and not shed blood in vain. " This address is "son", that is, son, vocative case - for Yaroslav it was, of course, offensive, because he, of course, was his son-in-law, that is, younger, but he could not call him a son in any way, especially since he was the son of the great Vsevolod. Naturally, Yaroslav did not appreciate such a peaceful initiative and replied: “We don’t want peace. Your husbands are with me, you came from afar, but left like fish dry.” This suggests that Mstislav to the last did not want to solve the case with a big carnage. Then they sent messengers to the rest of the Vsevolodovichs - Yuri, Svyatoslav and Ivan: "Brothers, we are all of the Vladimirov tribe and did not come here for war and ruin, not to take away your fatherland, but we are looking for peace, nevertheless, according to the law of God and Russian Truth. Give eldership to your big brother Constantine. You know yourself that if you don't love your brother, you hate God, otherwise nothing can be redeemed. " So, they turned to the Russkaya Pravda, however, in a somewhat strange form, because, by and large, according to the law, this throne should have been occupied not by the eldest son of Vsevolod, but by his elder brother or elder relative. But nevertheless, they turned to the Russian Truth. Here Yuri was already offended and answered: "Tell Mstislav that he knows how he came, but he does not know how he will leave here." Those. very cocky. "And tell brother Constantine: overpower us, then all your land will be." At this time, the troops that advanced from the described principalities converged near the Lipitsa river. There was a council of war, two councils of war - in one camp and in the other camp, we, frankly, do not know exactly how this happened, because almost all the reports about the remarks and decisions that were made there are late, but nevertheless quite it is funny to read: "In the camp of Yuri Vsevolodovich and Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, boyar Ratibor said:" Princes Yuri and Yaroslav, there was never, either with your fathers, or grandfathers, or great-grandfathers, so that someone entered the strong Suzdal land and left it intact. Yes, even if the whole Russian land went to us - Galician and Kiev, and Smolensk, and Chernigov, and Novgorod, and Ryazan, and even then they will not do anything with you, but what about these regiments, so we will throw them saddles. ”I recognize my brother Kolya And Yuri and Yaroslav, extremely inspired by the speeches of their officers, gave the order not to take prisoners in battle: "Behold the goods have come into your hands - you will have armor, horses and ports (ports are clothes, not pants). And whoever takes a living person will be killed himself, if his shoulders are embroidered with gold - and kill him. Let us not leave a single living one. If someone escapes from the regiment, we will grab him, otherwise we will hang and crucify those. Well, who of the princes will fall into the hands, we will talk about those later. "That is, only relatives were ordered not to kill, everyone else was ordered to be put under the knife. That is, this is what in the Middle Ages in Western Europe was called" a bad war "because the feudal war was a good war, because if you surrendered, you were taken prisoner, and in the end it was not at all necessary to kill a noble warrior -" shito's golden mantle ", well, only if it so happens that you A person surrendered, captured him, received a ransom for him, and a year later he took you prisoner, you surrendered, returned the ransom to him. Fine, you can live like that. Very rarely there was a "bad war" when, for example, they did not take prisoners.This was generally considered a violation of military honor, and, in a good way, it was impossible to do so, especially since the Christian Church, both Orthodox and Catholic, was extremely unhappy, but nevertheless, it happened at very usually dramatic events x and strong mutual resentment. For example, German mercenaries and Swiss mercenaries never organized a "good war" between themselves. When they collided on the battlefield, there was always some kind of total massacra, some kind of terrible completely with total beating, torture, bullying. Well, here they motivated people: if "you come from the regiment", ie if you run away from formation, we will either hang or crucify; if you don’t kill the prisoner, we will kill you. Kill everyone except the princes! Yes, and of course, this very clearly demonstrates how matters were generally resolved in the Middle Ages in the era of the highest dawn of feudalism: all the princes, having gathered for a council, first divided the lands of their enemies, as if they had already won. This is not because they are so self-confident, it is because if they had not determined in advance who will go to whom, they could have fought right or immediately before the fight, or during the fight to act inconsistently, in general, something bad would be necessary It happened. Those. it was they who showed farsightedness in general, they were very perspicacious, that they gathered in a tent and wrote down which piece of the pie would go to whom, no matter, we will win, we will not win, but so that everything is fair. Now we will agree, and then we will fight. Usually historians calculate the strength of the sides in this way, which is extremely significant for me. Here they write: “It is known that 5 thousand Novgorodians approached Rzhev with Mstislav Udatny, that in the presentation of Vasily Nikolayevich Tatishchev, it turned into 500 horsemen, and 900 Pskovites marched to the city of Zubtsov. These figures seem to be quite real, and based on them, further calculations. " 5000 Novgorodians - these figures do not seem real: this is a long campaign, this is not a fight near Novgorod itself. This means that people on horseback perform without fail. If they are on horseback, it means that they are more or less dressed in armor - this is expensive. With the total mobilization of the entire Novgorod land already under Ivan the Terrible, in the famous Polotsk campaign of 1568, the entire Novgorod land was able to supply 3,300 people in total, despite the fact that it was there that a system of local layout of the land was installed for many decades in a row, when landowners were seated on villages, i.e. the army came out not only from the cities, but also from the countryside, because it was there that the landowners were concentrated. There was no local layout system, firstly, there was no, and secondly, the population was clearly less than in the 16th century, at least not more than in the 16th century, and the army could only leave the city, because the landowners in the countryside , especially in the Novgorod land, there was practically none at all, because, as I have already said 20 times and I will say again, at this time the village is 1-3 houses, less often 5, it is simply impossible to feed a professional warrior and his horse, impossible. Therefore, all the warriors come out only from the cities. Here they write to us that there were 5,000 Novgorodians at the beginning of the 13th century, while only 3,300 people were able to take part in the largest campaign of the Russian army in general in the entire medieval history with total mobilization, when everyone was swept up: sick, crippled, crippled, old , young - all this noble cavalry went to fight. And here there are 5,000 people - this is when you consider how many cities at that time, at the beginning of the 13th century, there were generally in the Novgorod land, even if they were swept away from everywhere, everything to the garrison warriors, who carried not regimental, but city service, would hardly have accumulated so many ... But since we see that this is a rather rapid maneuver, it could only have been cavalry, and there were even less of them. How many, I will say a little later, I just swear at such clearly overestimated figures, "which it is quite possible to trust and build on them" - that's not right! "The Smolensk land, which did not suffer the same calamity as Novgorod, (meaning the famine in Novgorod) should have sent a larger army, but it could hardly significantly exceed the army of Mstislav." Has comprehended - this in a sense, they did not block the krantik? No, no, the residents of Smolensk were not blocked off anything, they could not be blocked, but the Novgorodians could have been blocked, and there, among other things, "the mraz was great", i.e. frost that has beaten the crops. In general, counting the city regiment and the prince's squad, they conditionally reduce to 6,000 people - why ?! That's where this figure came from, I, God forbid, I don't know. Why not 9 or 4? These are absolutely voluntaristic premises that have no basis at all, i.e. there are 5,000 people in Novgorod, but there was hunger, so there are a little more in Smolensk, so there are 6,000 people. Those. this is based on an unreliable premise, on the basis of which, naturally, unreliable conclusions are drawn, because there were no 5000 people in Novgorod, and there were no 6000 in Smolensk either. Well, one of the standard points and common points on which almost everyone agrees that the army of Yaroslav Vsevolodovich and Yuri Vsevolodovich was much larger than the Novgorod-Smolensk-Pskov army. Much more. It was colorful in its composition, but much more. If, according to such a system, which we are offered, to add up all the forces of Mstislav Udatny and Konstantin Vsevolodvich, it turns out together with the Belozerts who approached the Rostovites and who were no more than 1000, as the author graciously informs us, then the rati could be up to 16 thousand soldiers. Then another method of counting is proposed: it is known that Yuri had 13 banners, and Yaroslav had 17. Banner - I mean a banner as a military unit. Firstly, this is known from a rather late message, nothing of the kind is said in the Novgorod First Chronicle, but then we are told that individual combat units are considered banners, which included 20-150 copies led by a boyar, city foreman or petty prince ... Considering that the composition of one spear, in addition to the commanders, included 10 more soldiers, it is possible to give a rounded number of Yuri's forces at 70 thousand, and Yaroslav's at 9-13 thousand people. Here, to put it mildly, in the 13th century, 10 people did not enter the spear anywhere at all. It's good if there were 3 of them together with the knight. All this can be reduced by three times at once - firstly. Secondly, I also don’t know where 20-150 copies in one banner came from. Why not 10? Why not 300? Those. at least this is fortune-telling on coffee grounds, and this thick is made from the cheapest "Nescafe", and they are trying to suggest to us that this is some kind of Arabica. Considering that, in addition to everything else, there was a regiment of Ivan Vsevolodovich and Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich - younger brothers, they are graciously released 5000 people, because 10 thousand are under Rzhev, what, the chronicle tells us, they brought - this is a clear exaggeration, that's not 10, but 5. And thus, the size of the army is 21 thousand - 30 thousand people from Vsevolodovich against 16 thousand from Mstislav Udaliy and Konstantin Vsevolodovich. Well that's the size of a clash of a good 17th century battle that could have been. Those. it turns out that in the 17th century and at the beginning of the 13th century the size of the collisions were approximately the same. Those. here are the forces of an almost Mongol invasion? Yes, i.e. these are practically the forces of the Mongol invasion, slightly less. If we take everyone together, then it will be about 40, 46 thousand people - this is approximately what, even more than what the Mongols could theoretically bring to Russia. And here, due to the fact that Mstislav had a quarrel with Yaroslav over Novgorod, and Kostik and Yura because of Vladimir, and they gathered their squads to decide who was finally right, 46 thousand people gathered in one place. I almost forgot, excuse me, this is important: on the side of the Yaroslavichs there was a corps of the roaming proto-Cossacks. In general, it is not necessary to think that these were some kind of hicks. These were rogue warriors, rogue boyars, rogue princes, i.e. these were professional military men, they just found themselves expelled from their society or some conditionally closed corporation. Ronin. Yes, here are the ronins. How many there were is absolutely incomprehensible, we do not even have an approximate reference data to calculate the number of wanderers. But this is just a hired contingent of some kind. I propose to approach the "shovel" calculation as archaeologists do. Those. we know absolutely exactly from the annals which cities put up service corporations for battles and which princes went out to battle with their squads. We know the size of most of these cities, so I personally am not aware of only the medieval 13th century Rostov, all the other cities I found, what size they were. We remember that approximately, proceeding from the approximation data, of course, that is, averaging the data from excavations in Novgorod, Kiev, where there are well-preserved estates, we know that there were on average 40 estates per hectare. Per hectare? Per hectare - they were very small. It turns out that about 200 people lived on a hectare, because one family lived on an average of 5 people in one estate. It turns out that the maximum that one could afford with a one-story building is 200 people per hectare. Knowing the size of the city, we can safely remove about 25% of it from useful buildings, because these are streets, common areas, all sorts of squares, marketplaces, i.e. where people do not live, and leave 75% for buildings where people lived, and calculate how many people there were. As soon as we understand how many people there were, we can immediately understand that a maximum of 2% of them were professional soldiers who could be put under arms. There were also fortresses, of course. The number of professional soldiers in the fortress was much greater, because people did not live there, they served there. And here we have what happens: first, let's look at the scoundrels, from the point of view of the Novgorod Chronicle - at the Vsevolodovichi. Yuri Vsevolodovich is a Grand Duke from the big city of Rostov, well, the maximum that he could carry with him is 200-300 professional soldiers. And this is really a lot, because, let me remind you, in 1514, these are documented objective data, near Smolensk and near Orsha, the Grand Duke of Moscow, the sovereign of all Russia, set up a court of 220 horsemen in total. Rich! More he could not scrape together well in any way. Therefore, I, of course, strongly ... take the framework restrictions, because regarding the squads, we do not know exactly how many people they made up, especially since they, for sure, at different times made up a different number, because they, for sure, could include some mercenaries who were specially invited to participate in the fight. Remember the movie The Gang of New York? At the very beginning, when they walk, they meet such a fucking healthy Irishman with a club and offer him to fight together, he immediately asks: "How much per head do you give? How much? How much? That's it, I'm with you." So, apparently, something like this could be here, i.e., apparently, the size of the prince's squad was not constant. Therefore, I give the most framework restrictions, of course, in a big way, because I, for sure, bent 300 people. 200 people - more like the truth. In general, I will dwell on something like this: the Grand Duke has 200-300 people. Suzdal in the 13th century is only 49 hectares, although it is the second capital of the Vladimir-Suzdal land. Well, roughly speaking, 50 to 200 people ... Not 50, but 75% of 50. There you get the mobilization capacity of 200 people from the city of professional military men. If the small towns of the Suzdal land joined, and they were much smaller than Suzdal, 1.5 - 2 - 3 hectares, 10-15 people could leave them. Then 400 people in total left Suzdal. Again, we do not know whether small towns participated or not, i.e. 200-400. Vladimir, of course, was a gigantic city - 145 hectares, over 20 thousand people lived there. It turns out that Vladimir himself could have deployed a police regiment of 500 fighters. Again, there were a considerable number of specific towns around Vladimir, which could also have deployed a contingent. Again, we do not know whether they put them up or not, because there is not a word about this in the annals. It says: the people of Suzdal, the people of Vladimir - this is what it says. Those. residents of Suzdal and Vladimir were definitely involved in this, and who else participated, God knows, but from 500 to 100 people - what Vladimir himself could, not the whole Vladimir land, and Vladimir himself put up - this is about 1000 people. Again, I emphasize right away - this is an elected army, i.e. what is immediately capable of a long march is not even all the equestrian military force that Vladimir had, but the best fighters. It turns out that a total of 700-1400 people from Suzdal and Vladimir together. Yaroslav, Prince of Pereyaslavl, but he was, of course, much thinner at that time than Yuri Vsevolodovich, so I counted him a voluntarist squad of 100 people. Pereyaslavl itself was 40 hectares in size, i.e. he had 150 people from the city itself, or 300 people from all over the Pereyaslavl principality, because, again, all other cities were much smaller. There Dmitrov is 2.3 hectares, 800 people lived there, i.e. 80 people could leave it in the worst case, and most likely less. Gorodets is a slightly larger city, 60 hectares, i.e. 250-500 people, i.e. or Gorodets itself or Gorodets with its surroundings. Finally Davyd Yuryevich, Prince of Murom. Again, I added 100 people to the squad. I charge all the princes, except the great, the great, in a hundred. Well, the residents of Murom left a giant megalopolis of 3 hectares - at that time Murom was exactly that size. Well, 100, well, 200 people, if they could leave from all over the principality, that's good. Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich - another 100 people, he brought the regiment from Yuryev-Polsky. Yuryev-Polsky was located in the Suzdal opolye, a rather crowded city - 500-600 people could really leave from there. And Ivan Vsevolodovich, who would later become Prince Starodubsky, at that time he had no inheritance, apparently, he himself was with his retinue, and I also counted 100 people for him, although the prince without inheritance could rely only on some of his uncle, those. people personally devoted to him. If there were 50 of them, I would be very surprised. But to make it easier to count, he added 100. And a certain number of roaming mercenaries either from the Dnieper, or from the Danube, where, in fact, the chronicles locate these very roamers. How many there were, God knows, maybe 500, or maybe 1000 people, we don't know. In total, we get a minimum of 2300 people, a maximum of 3650 people, plus 500-1000 wanderers. Those. the maximum is 4650 people - this is what the coalition of the younger Vsevolodovichs put forward. This, moreover, the maximum, the maximum restriction, more this land could not physically expose. Residents of Novgorod and Smolensk: Konstantin Vsevolodovich is another Grand Duke, together with Rostov, I also assigned him 200 people, and Rostov 500-1000 people, because the city was still large, the first capital of the Vladimir-Suzdal land, i.e. big old town. Those. or 500 from the city itself, or 1000 from the city and suburbs. Mstislav Udatny is not a grand duke, but he is such a famous warrior that people from everywhere could reach for him in search of luck, fame and money and other nishtyaks useful for any warrior, so I also added 200 people to him. Novgorod is the largest of all the cities that participated in the conflict, and, as we know, a city regiment of up to 500 people could leave Novgorod itself, plus, as a rule, the squad of the archbishop, the so-called. the lord's regiment - another 100 people at least, because the Novgorod bishop was one of the richest feudal lords not only of Novgorod, but of the entire Russian land, and could afford. Those. 600 people could leave at this time from Novgorod itself an elected army, and if you take all the specific cities from the giant 15-hectare Ladoga to Staraya Russa, then just Russa, 1200-1300 people could leave at most at this time. Again, one must take into account that there was a famine at that time, and apparently, not everyone survived to the war. Vladimir Rurikovich - 100 people, and Smolensk, a big city - 100 hectares, i.e. 400 people from the city itself could speak and 800 people, I believe, from the entire Smolensk province, because all the other cities were dramatically smaller than Smolensk, just dramatically - 0.63 - 1.5 - 2 hectares of small fenced settlements. Pskov, they told us, fielded 500 people - perhaps 600 people even came out from all over the Pskov land, because we know that in the Polotsk campaign, the Pskovians were exactly 600 people. Pskovians were able to put up a forged army. Those. Pskov itself up to 300 people, based on the size, could put up, the Pskov land up to 600. And Vladimir Mstislavich Pskov - another 100 people. Finally, Vsevolod Mstislavich - 100 people and from Beloozero. which was also a megalopolis of 30 hectares, a maximum of 200 people could come. In total, from 2700 to 3600 people. Not rich. These are the forces that gathered for a decisive clash and that created the legend of a gigantic battle. Indeed, in the memory of the participants, and even more so the descendants, this battle was indeed gigantic. Well, if everyone they could, then it is really gigantic. Because, as a rule, there was nothing like this in the strife of the Russian princes, this is too much, because the squads, as a rule, participated in strife more often, the city regiments participated much less often. And here who could be swept from everywhere. And when we say that this is not 30 thousand, but 3 thousand, they will immediately tell us: well, what are you rubbing at us, it says about a great battle, and here 3 thousand people - what a great battle is this? Well, I beg your pardon, more than a million people participated in the Kursk Bulge, and about 100 thousand people in the Battle of Borodino. The battle of Borodino is also great. And the Kursk Bulge is great, it just happened much later. So why, if we step back from Borodin for another 600 years, why the numbers should remain the same, I absolutely do not understand. And why, given that it was even earlier than Borodino, why a fight of 3,000 people against 3,000 people is not considered great, I do not understand. After all, you need to look not at the size, the size in this case does not matter, the result only matters, because Alexander Yaroslavich Nevsky managed to kill 20 German knights and take 6 prisoners, and ensure peace for 30 years in the strategic direction. Also a great battle, although there were forces involved, to put it mildly, incomparable. So, the Suzdal people, i.e. a coalition of scoundrels of the younger Vsevolodovich dug in on a hill behind the river and began to wait for the approach of the enemies. Actually, this mountain is still preserved - Avdovaya Mountain, there it is about 200 m high and is separated from that side by a ravine along which a small stream flows. It was to this very Mount of Obd that forces began to approach from one side and from the other. On April 20, most of the participants gathered, and, as expected, small skirmishes began - some, then others jumped over the ravine, jumped, apparently, there was some kind of archery fire of varying intensity. But again, if we speak in the language of 16th century digital books, "and so they were poisoned all day, but there was no removable battle." Here they were poisoned all day, and removable, i.e. there was no decisive hand-to-hand combat. And only on the 21st, an experienced commander, apparently, it was the idea of \u200b\u200bMstislav the Bold, he ordered to wind up the military camp, i.e. The Suzdal people, looking from their mountain, might think that they were leaving, and now they will perform some kind of maneuver and may end up in a place where they no longer expect them, for example, to take a city by storm. Therefore, they began to descend from the mountain, already ready for battle. Thus, they were lured into an open battle. Again, they were at the very top of the mountain, it was difficult to fight them. The usual order of battle is described in the chronicle as a 3-member one both on the other side and on the other side. This is traditional not only for the Russian Middle Ages, but also for the Middle Ages in general, because there everything related to 3 was considered sacred, and therefore correct. Well, and besides, as I said, it's just convenient: it's intuitively clear that you have a body with a head - this is the central regiment, your right hand and left hand, with which you do something there, so you have two regiments - right and left. It's easy to understand and easy to manage. The Novgorodians and the squad of Mstislav the Bold stood in the forehead, if we talk about the Novgorod-Smolensk side. Those. the central regiment is large, as they would say in the 15-16th century, these are the Novgorodians and the squad of Mstislav the Bold. On the right hand, apparently, the Smolensk people and the squad of Vladimir Rurikovich are located, and on the left are the instigators of all this outrage, the Rostovites and the squad of Konstantin Vsevolodovich. It is not clear where Vsevolod Mstislavich and Vladimir Mstislavich - Belozertsy and Pskovites - stood. Apparently, there really were not very many of them, and it is possible to assume that they were merged with the Novgorodians. On the other hand, I personally can assume that Belozertsev was taken by Konstantin Vsevolodovich, because these are people from his principality, from a distant suburb, but all the same, why would they be taken to a large regiment? Because, let me remind you once again, all these people were built in the same way as they lived - in corporations, and Beloozero and Rostov belonged to the same corporation, which was headed by the Rostov prince Konstantin Vsevolodovich. What we see here: we see that the flanks are very much weaker than the center, because even Rostov, which sent serious troops, is much less than Novgorod, the more reinforced by the squad of Mstislav the Bold. Those. do you measure it strictly by the number of people? Yes of course. It is by the number of people that a powerful central column and two relatively frail flanks are obtained. Moreover, unevenly frail - we get the left flank with the Rostovites more frail than the center, but quite representative, but there is no right flank, because there are forces incomparable neither with the center nor with the left flank. For us - people brought up on Delbrück, on Razin, on different films, we tend to think that at least they should be somehow evenly made, because a strongly weakened flank is even intuitively understandable, which is very dangerous. Moreover, we remember the battle of Cannes, where everything was strictly the opposite, and the battle of the Thebans and ... with the Spartans, when, on the contrary, the flank is strengthened, the weaker flank of the enemy breaks through, everything ends with the encirclement and Kesselshlakht, the battle in the cauldron. But here everything is different, this is the Middle Ages - absolutely the opposite logic: the center had to be strong. The flanks should also have been present, but they could be much weaker than the center, and here's why: because it was in the center that the troops were concentrated, which could be gradually introduced into battle. And there, naturally, was a big banner and the commander-in-chief. Those. the commander-in-chief could directly give orders to his people, and not send an order to the flank through a messenger. The messenger could simply not get there, or the commander-in-chief could visually miss something important, and in the Middle Ages, again, the order could be given, even if it was given to the flank, only once - this is "Attack!" Why? Because they can go on the attack, but it will be almost impossible to deploy them back. Those. as soon as the knightly cavalry went on the attack, it is completely in the hands of its commander. What will the commander think to himself? How does he remember the plan they made the day before, doesn't remember the plan? Suddenly they hit him on the head with a club - he will forget everything or die altogether. Those. most likely, you had to count on the fact that if the flank went on the attack, you would not see him again, he would fight there. Those. reserves had to be concentrated as close as possible to the commander-in-chief, in the center. And from the encirclement, transverse strikes from the center should have been saved, which could have been delivered simply by turning the reserve or part of the reserve in the right direction, which we saw, for example, in the battle of Orsha in 1514, when Konstantin Ivanovich Ostrozhsky brilliantly reflected Russian attacks that broke through weak flanks. From the powerful center, from the column, he allocated detachments that repulsed the attacks of those who made their way through the flank. In general, they could count on something like this at an earlier time. The scoundrels Vsevolodovich, who climbed down the Avdova Gora, were built like this: Yuri Vsevolodovich and the Suzdal people stood opposite the Novgorodians in the center, i.e. Suzdal and Vladimir, again we see the most powerful regiment in the center, i.e. the most representative units that are, stand opposite the largest regiment that the enemy has. Opposite the Rostovites, the smaller brothers stood up - as they say directly in the chronicles - Ivan Vsevolodovich and Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich with their squads and guys from Yuryev-Polsky, and also, apparently, with the brodniks. Brodniks-rabble. Mobsters, yes, but it's still not from the word "rabble", but rather "roam", "vagabonds". Well, on the other hand, the main instigator of all this disgrace arose and the one who served as a pretext for the war, i.e. Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, who with his people from Pereyaslavl, city dwellers, Muromets, Davyd Yuryevich's squad ... I beg your pardon - it was he who had the brodniks under his command, Yaroslav Vsevolodovich. Yes, exactly - he was with the roamers together. And we also see that the completely uneven disposition of troops: on the one hand, a relatively strong flank, on the other hand, a very motley set of forces, which, apparently, see each other in the eyes for the first time, and a powerful center, a column - the squad of the Grand Duke, those. again there are 200, maybe 300 people, a regiment from Suzdal - a very large city, a regiment from Vladimir - an even larger city - all this is in the center. Moreover, you need to understand that since this is the capital, the best warriors lived there, i.e. these are the elite parts. Mstislav Udaloy made a speech as it should be. He asked the question: "Go to battle, whoever wants, on foot, who wants to, whether on horseback." Here he, apparently, bred the Novgorodians poorly, because he saw perfectly well that there was a ravine and a stream in front of them, and to climb there on horseback was just suicide. And the Novgorodians were weakly led and said: "Don't want to die on horseback, don't want to fight like our fathers on Koloksha" - this means the battle on Koloksha in 1096, when they fought for Yaroslav the Wise. This river is Koloksha. I beg your pardon, they fought for Mstislav the Great, not for Yaroslav the Wise, of course, what am I saying? Nevermind. Here Mstislav and there was Mstislav. And he offered them, apparently remembering something, offered them such a maneuver. A later chronicle says that the people of Smolensk also dismounted, but in the original story as close as possible to the events of the Novgorod First Chronicle, there is not a word about this. It is said that the Novgorodians all got off their horses and threw off their boots, remaining barefoot, so that it was more convenient to climb the ravine, because the boots, who have seen authentic, made or genuine, archaeologically found leather boots of the 13th century, are a thin leather sole, it is very slippery. Stocking actually. It's easy, yes, a stocking, it's very slippery, to climb in it on ... especially since it's the end of April, perhaps, the soil is soggy, it's just slippery, but barefoot is quite the opposite. Especially if the nails are not trimmed. Yes, but considering that they had been on the hike for quite some time, counting from February, they probably did not cut their nails on purpose and so they went to cling, cling. Again, in the later chronicle it is said that they dismounted, that the infantry was from the side of Yaroslav Vsevolodovich and Yuri Vsevolodovich. Again, in the early chronicle there is not a word about this, it is there just in the form of a military trick, it is specifically indicated that the Novgorodians got off their horses, i.e. they were all equestrian. And then Mstislav commanded the attack, and in fact, the central regiment opened the attack, which, in general, is wild, of course, for a person who was brought up on classical tactics. It is stupid to simply open an attack with the center, the strongest part of your army, but this is the Middle Ages, as a rule at that time the first attack of the strongest part of the army decided the battle, and only then you could play with the flanks. If your attack of the center fails, then, in general, everyone can leave completely calmly, everything is already clear. And the Novgorodians went on foot to the cavalry, which opposed them. And in general, they were right, because it was extremely inconvenient to attack from the slope, apparently, and even on soggy ground. And they were able to hold back the oncoming attack, apparently, having built up a wall of shields, exposing their cavalry spears, were able to hold back the attack of the cavalry of Vladimir and Suzdal, who naturally got bogged down in Novgorod's structures. And then Mstislav Udatny said his famous phrase that - and they were on horseback behind - that we would not betray our people, after which all the cavalry that was at the same time struck through the ravine. And here, of course, the tactical genius of Mstislav manifested itself, because as soon as a fight began there, and this cavalry got bogged down in the infantry, it became possible to ferry the main forces of the cavalry under the cover of this very foot phalanx, dismounted vigilantes, and it was quite large. As I said, there could have been up to 1200 people, which is a lot. Cunning! He was able to ferry the cavalry across the ravine and attack directly the enemy. The wanderers ran first, as usual. The most courageous and brave, yes, professional soldiers. Many have already received money, so now - to die, or what? The salary is already there. Well, yes, the wanderers finally ran and Yaroslav's squads ran with them. And Mstislav himself, as it is said, drove through the enemy's orders three times on horseback, chopping everyone with an ax, which was on a belt loop in his hand. Here, three times. And Konstantin did the same. That is, they performed heroic deeds like this, but seeing Yaroslav's flight, they all ran. "On a white horse back and forth .." Yes, yes, yes. Everyone ran, apparently, the names of such heroes as Alyosha Popovich and Dobrynya Nikitich are associated with these princes, because in later chronicles these names are mentioned, and they are mentioned, which is important, not only in connection with the story of the Lipitsk battle, but they are mentioned repeatedly until the battle on the Kalka River, where, by the way, sooner or later, almost all the participants in this outrage will find themselves with rare exceptions. They all fought on the side of Mstislav Udatny - both Dobrynya and Alexander, however, Popovich. Well, who does not know: Alexander and Alexey are cognate words from "Alex", so they could be transformed in the end into Alyosha, into Alexey Popovich. "Alyosha" is a "fool" by the hairdryer, he's a "goof". What the Novgorod First Chronicle tells us: "Novgorodts has killed Dmitry Pskovichin (ie Pskovich), Anton Kotelnik, Ivanka Prybyshinitsa Oponnik on the edge. ", i.e. in total, 5 Novgorodians and 1 Smolyanin died, and 9233 people were killed from the other side. Well, it is clear that these were some prominent people, some of whom were listed, all the rest, of course, would not be listed, but this is how this battle happened in two steps: the first was an infantry attack, under the cover of an infantry attack, crossing cavalry ravine and cavalry attack with all forces, i.e. one access - a classic medieval battle, which stands out from the general classics only in that Mstislav hurried the Novgorodians. Those. again in a hurry - i.e. they were all horsemen, and mostly, of course, they were heavy cavalry, almost or directly equivalent to the squad. Those. when this whole crowd of Novgorodians walked up the ravine, you need to understand that they were all professional soldiers in armor, who, the only thing that took off their boots, to make it easier to climb up. Accordingly, shields, swords, axes, helmets - it was an armored phalanx that went on the attack, which was able, only because it was able to withstand the blow of the Vladimir-Suzdal cavalry regiments. As a result, Yaroslav Vsevolodovich fled, as it is said, in his undershirt, and ended up in Pereyaslavl. They wanted to humiliate him, of course, that he ran to Pereyaslavl in his shorts, despite April. Disguised as a woman, with a false beard. Continuously changing shoes in the air. Well, Yuri lost to his elder brother Konstantin with a miserable loss, was expelled from the great reign to the inheritance, ended up in Moscow as a result. True, we all remember that then Konstantin was forced to return his younger brother to Vladimir anyway, and after his death, Yuri still became the Grand Duke of Vladimir and brought the state in perfect order until the arrival of the Mongols. They tortured the guy, damn it. Well, Yaroslav Vsevolodovich was a very clever courtier, he was the first to make friends in the end with the Tatars, raised the great son Alexander Yaroslavich, went to the distant Karakorum twice, did not return a second time - he was poisoned there, apparently. Almost like I visited New York. Yes, it's not like in New York, I don't even know what to compare with. Now we simply cannot compare the journey from Novgorod to Karakorum, just nothing. Yes, of course, Yaroslav eventually returned to Novgorod, before he became the Grand Duke of Vladimir, and he became one in the end, he once again visited Novgorod as a prince. The trip to Karakorum was almost like now, probably to fly to the moon, about that. Because it was possible not to return back, not because you will be killed, but simply because it is so long that you may not live to see the way back or die on the way back. It was very far away. But I've been there just like that and, apparently, I've seen a lot on my life path. Well, Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, to be sure, is also a legendary figure. I list them all literally one by one: Mstislav Udaloy, Yaroslav Vsevolodovich - they were just legendary people in their time, only it is clear that Mstislav is older, so he became a legend earlier, and Yaroslav later. Well, in our time, of course, it is almost impossible to overestimate the contribution of these people to Russian history. This is the first thing. Second - here we see: for the Russian classical pre-Mongolian Middle Ages colossal forces were involved, simply colossal. How many we counted there - 2300 at the minimum and 3600 at the maximum on the one hand and 2700 and 3600, again, on the other hand. This is a lot, these are gigantic forces. An extremely rare battle in feudal Russia deployed such regiments. How it all ended - but almost nothing. It was just that people had a fight, solved narrowly local tactical problems - who would sit on which throne. Mstislav defended the Novgorodians, pulled out, as promised, all the people from captivity, opened the supply of bread - that is, he's done, of course. Konstantin punished his presumptuous younger brother and his second presumptuous younger brother, and punished two more presumptuous younger brothers. As a result, a year later he was forced to return his presumptuous younger brother Yuri to Vladimir by 1217. Is that what he achieved? Almost nothing. Those. this is a small tactical success achieved with monstrous blood, because, of course, there, given the 3600 and 3600 people who met each other on the field, obviously not 20 people were beaten there. For the feudal Middle Ages, this is, in any case, great losses. The result is almost none. And there is a complete failure of diplomacy. We could not agree. They could not agree, and moreover, some of the people did not really want to agree. The already experienced Mstislav Udaloy wanted to negotiate. All the rest ... It is even necessary to understand that no matter how old he is, when he is in power, he ceases to be a man - this is a function. He had to be specially taught, to be engaged, for example, in diplomacy. Neither Yaroslav, who later became a great diplomat, nor Yuri wanted to negotiate, they wanted to fight. Well, in this form, Russia approached the Mongol invasion, when even inside the recently unified Vladimir-Suzdal principality, naturally bloody fights began, when the entire Vladimir-Suzdal land could field about 3-4 thousand people in total. So princely separatism has established the defense of the all-Russian plan in the best way, frankly speaking. Those. they were ready for the arrival of the Mongols, and in general, at the first, of course, the appearance of forces, which were already numbered in tens of thousands, the whole system immediately took shape under the Mongol. Well, apparently nothing else could have happened. Those. children's fairy tales about the fact that it was necessary to connect, and they just quarreled - well, they would connect, and what would happen there? Well, they are connected. And then they disconnected again. They simply had no reason to unite - neither political, nor, most importantly, economic, because each specific city of a more or less large size was absolutely economically self-sufficient, it did not need anyone. "Each took his own inheritance, raised chickens and sat in it, guarding his inheritance, out of work." Correctly. Vysotsky? Yes. I looked at the root, yes. Cool! Well, as usual, it looks, to put it mildly, strange - these quoted figures are so many, so many, and then repeat that 9 thousand were killed - well, somehow it is ... Why are they up to your purely scientific approach to such things did not pay attention? The fact is that this is such a relatively modern know-how that makes its way from archeology into military history with a creak, because we all live by cliches. I myself 15 years ago ... I heard the word "Lipitskaya battle", and I immediately remembered what I read, and I immediately understand: there are 20-30 thousand on the one hand, 16-18 thousand on the other - and I forgot about it right there. ... Well, the Lipitskaya battle - and the Lipitskaya battle. Well, everything, these are ideas that are simply grafted, with which it is very difficult to fight, because here is even a very intelligent researcher, about whom I spoke and quotes from which I cited, who, in general, revealed the internal mechanisms of this very confrontation, about which we spoke , well enough. As soon as it comes to calculating the forces of the parties, it is immediately clear that a person is in captivity of some cliches, because he cannot imagine that less than 5-6 thousand people left Smolensk, because he imagines Smolensk, again , not a reproach, it is just objectively so, within the boundaries of its modern giant Kremlin, which was built in the 16-17th century. But this is not the same Smolensk as it was in the 13th century. And we all have no idea how these cities really looked at all, we just haven't seen a single one of them. We don't have a single city from the 13th century. Our consciousness has nothing to operate with, because, as you know, consciousness cannot come up with something that it does not know. All the notions that are in the head are just a reflection or combination of what we already know. When we hear the word "city", we imagine at least some Tula, ie. gigantic modern city where we have been. We have never seen a medieval pride, our head simply cannot think of what it is. This can be told to us by an archaeologist who would stand in this medieval city and see it, and he imagines what size it really is. Everything. Here is 270 hectares - this is Novgorod. Well, let's think now, again, taking a tape measure, measuring all the estates, taking the arithmetic mean, calculating how many people lived there, and from the chronicle data about the princely families, well known, and about the number ... and the amount of inventory that we we find in this estate, you can count how many people lived there, without any difficulty. And on average, let's calculate how many hectares were, how many hectares were inhabited - again, an archaeologist can easily calculate, and we will understand what mobilization capacity there was. That's all. This is how we can approximately begin to approach an objective understanding - to begin to approach! - to an objective understanding of what actually happened at that time in Russia. Sensibly. Thank you, Klim Sanych, very interesting. And that's all for today. Until next time.
Background
Having seized the Kazan throne, Khan Ulu-Muhammad began to organize systematic raids on Russian lands beginning in 1439, when he laid siege to Moscow. By the mid-1440s, raids became noticeably more frequent, and in 1444 the khan began to make plans to annex Nizhny Novgorod, which was facilitated by the close ties of the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod princes with the Horde. Between the great Moscow prince Vasily II and the Kazan khan, a fierce struggle unfolded for Nizhny Novgorod, then a rich Volga city and an important strategic center. In the winter of 1444, the khan, having captured Nizhny Novgorod, advanced even further, capturing Murom. In response to these actions, Vasily II gathered troops and set out from Moscow during Epiphany. On January 6, 1445, the Grand Duke was already in Vladimir. Basil II, according to the chronicle sources, had impressive forces, in connection with which the khan did not dare to engage in battle and retreated to Nizhny Novgorod. Separate detachments of the Tatars were defeated near Murom and Gorokhovets. Due to the approaching Easter, and also, probably, at the request of the appanage princes-allies, whose lands were unexpectedly attacked by the Lithuanians (see the battle on Sukhodrev), Vasily II returned to Moscow. He sent his governors Fyodor Dolgoldov and Yuri Dranitsa to Nizhny Novgorod, who managed to take part of the city fortifications, but could not hold them back and returned.
They arrived at the Grand Duke with small forces, and Dmitry Shemyaka did not take part in the campaign at all. Despite the slowness of the grand ducal troops, the Tatar prince Berdedat, who served Vasily II, did not manage to join them. According to the chronicles, the army of the Grand Duke numbered "as if not with a thousand" soldiers. Historian Nikolai Borisov estimates the number of the grand ducal army at 1,500 soldiers, citing as one of the reasons the fact that the appanage princes preferred to leave a significant part of their forces in their possessions to protect them from the Lithuanians.
Battle
The small Moscow army reached Suzdal on July 6, 1445 and camped on a spacious meadow near the Spaso-Evfimiev monastery. Wanting to check the combat readiness of their forces, the princes staged a "flare-up" - a kind of training alert and combat formation. The obvious smallness of the army made Vasily II hope for the arrival of reinforcements, and a drunken feast was organized to raise morale. Apparently, the Grand Duke believed that the Tatars were still far enough away.
However, in the early morning of July 7, a messenger rushed into the camp with the message that the Tatars had crossed the Nerl. Vasily II hastily ordered the formation of regiments, which was executed by his governors. The first clash with the Tatars took place in a field on the left side of the Spaso-Evfimiev Monastery. The onslaught of the "nasty" was repulsed, but the Tatars used their favorite technique - a feigned retreat. The lack of one-man command in the heterogeneous Russian army led to the fact that some of the warriors rushed in pursuit, while the other was carried away by collecting trophies at the scene of the collision. The fleeing Tatars suddenly turned around and hit the pursuing Russian troops. A new battle ensued, in which the Tatars won a decisive victory. The Tatars broke into the Russian camp, managing to capture the Grand Duke himself and Mikhail Andreyevich Vereisky. Ivan Andreevich Mozhaisky and Vasily Yaroslavich Serpukhovskoy were wounded, but "I have flown away in a small squad".
Effects
The battle had grave consequences for the Moscow principality. Having seized and plundered Suzdal, the Tatars in 3 days moved inland, approaching Vladimir (the city, however, did not dare to storm the city). Then they retreated towards Murom, simultaneously plundering the entire Vladimir land. On August 23, the princes returned to Nizhny Novgorod with the Polo.
The pectoral crosses removed from Vasily II were sent to Moscow. The evidence of the capture of the Grand Duke horrified the entire court. At the same time, Moscow was engulfed in a major fire that claimed the lives of several thousand people and destroyed a significant part of the houses. Nevertheless, numerous peasants gripped by fear, awaiting the imminent arrival of the Tatars, began to flock under the protection of the city walls. The nobility, on the contrary, preferred to flee the city, fearing both the Tatars and the distraught crowd. The common people began to organize the defense of the city.
25,000 rubles), and on October 1, Vasily II, even before the return of the Tatar embassy to Dmitry Shemyaka, together with other prisoners, was released to his homeland.
The khan himself was interested in the fact that a more legitimate ruler would sit on the Moscow throne, who would regularly collect tribute from the entire system of the great reign of Vladimir. Shemyaka's reign threatened with new troubles that would give the khan only short-term benefits, while the reign of the dependent Vasily II seemed to him more stable, profitable and secure. For the Moscow principality, the ransom amount turned out to be a very heavy burden.
The Battle of Suzdal is a battle that took place on July 7, 1445 near Suzdal between the troops of the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily II the Dark and the Kazan Tatars led by the princes Mamutyak and Yakub, who were sent to Russia by Khan Ulu-Muhammad. The result of the battle was the complete defeat of the Moscow army and the capture of the Grand Duke. The battle decided the outcome of an unsuccessful campaign for Vasily II against the Kazan Tatars and had disastrous consequences for the Moscow state.
Background
Having seized the Kazan throne, Khan Ulu-Muhammad began to organize systematic raids on the Russian lands beginning in 1439. By the mid-1440s, raids became noticeably more frequent, and in 1444 the khan began to make plans to annex Nizhny Novgorod, which was facilitated by the close ties of the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod princes with the Horde. Between the great Moscow prince Vasily II and the Kazan khan, a fierce struggle unfolded for Nizhny Novgorod, then a rich Volga city and an important strategic center. In the winter of 1444, the khan, having captured Nizhny Novgorod, advanced even further, capturing Murom. In response to these actions, Vasily II gathered troops and set out from Moscow during Epiphany. On January 6, 1445, the Grand Duke was already in Vladimir. Basil II, according to the chronicle sources, had impressive forces, in connection with which the khan did not dare to engage in battle and retreated to Nizhny Novgorod. Soon the city was recaptured, and the Tatars were defeated near Murom and Gorokhovets. Having successfully completed the campaign, the Grand Duke returned to Moscow.
Campaign of 1445
In the spring of 1445, Khan Ulu-Muhammad sent his sons Mamutyak and Yakub on a campaign against Russia. Upon learning of this, Vasily II did not attach great importance to this event, as he was reassured by the successes of the last year. From Moscow, the Grand Duke set out for Yuryev, where the governors Fyodor Dolgoldov and Yury Dranitsa then arrived, leaving Nizhny Novgorod. The campaign was poorly organized: princes Ivan and Mikhail Andreevich and Vasily Yaroslavich arrived at the Grand Duke with small forces, and Dmitry Shemyaka did not take part in the campaign at all. According to the chronicles, the army of the Grand Duke numbered "as if not with a thousand" soldiers.
Battle
On July 6, 1445, a small Moscow army settled at the Spaso-Evfimiev Monastery not far from Suzdal. The troops of the Tatar prince Berdedat, who came to the aid of the Grand Duke from the western border, had by that time only reached Yuriev-Polsky. Soon a false alarm followed, after which the princes, having calmed down, indulged in feasts and drunkenness until late at night. On the morning of July 7, the Tatars crossed the Nerl. Vasily II gave the order to march. The first clash with the Tatars took place in a field on the left side of the Spaso-Evfimiev Monastery. The victory leaned towards the Russians, and after a while the Tatars fled. The Russians rushed in pursuit, plundering the wounded and killed Tatar soldiers along the way. Soon the Kazanians turned and unexpectedly hit the Moscow regiments. A new battle ensued, in which the Tatars won ...
Monk of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, hero of the Battle of Kulikovo - Alexander Peresvet
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