by Daniil Pelymov
[REGNUM] "On the eighth day of the month of September, on the very feast of the Mother of God, at the time of sunrise, there was great darkness over the whole land, and that morning was foggy until the third hour. And the Lord commanded the darkness to retreat, and granted the coming of the light. The great prince gathered his troops…"
Thus, the earliest surviving evidence of the Battle of Kulikovo ( an entry in the Chronicle of 1408) describes the first minutes of one of the most important battles in Russian history.
645 years ago, on September 8 (September 16, new style), 1380, on the field at the confluence of the Nepryadva River and the Don, the united army under the command of the Prince of Moscow, Novgorod, and Grand Duke of Vladimir Dmitry Ivanovich entered into battle with the Horde army of the beklyarbek and temnik - that is, the governor and "general" - Mamai.
The Chronicle also mentions a letter of blessing to Prince Dmitry "from the venerable abbot Sergius, from the holy elder," that is, from Sergius of Radonezh, glorified as a saint. It also mentions the former Bryansk boyar, and then a monk of the Trinity Monastery, Alexander, nicknamed Peresvet, who fell on the "open and vast field."
The single combat between the warrior monk Peresvet and Bek Chelubey is mentioned in other, later sources. In the " Tale of the Battle of Mamai", written already in the 15th century, the name of another student of Sergius of Radonezh, who became a hero of the battle, is mentioned - the humble schemamonk Andrei, in the world the warrior Roman, nicknamed Oslyabya.
"Since the creation of the world, there has not been such a battle among the Russian great princes as under this great prince of all Russia," a Russian chronicler wrote while the battle was still fresh. " From the sixth hour to the ninth, like rain from a cloud, the blood of both Russian sons and pagans flowed, and countless numbers fell dead on both sides." The chronicler speaks of the fear of those Muscovites who "had never been in battle" before, and of the "strong and firm daring of courage" of experienced fighters.
Be that as it may, the enemy began to press the Russian ranks - and then the tide of battle was turned by a sudden maneuver. An ambush cavalry regiment led by the Moscow voivode Bobrok Volynsky crashed into the Tatar ranks from the flank, disrupted the formation of Mamai's army and threw the "enemy" into confusion.
The bloody battle continued: "The great Russian infantry army was broken like trees and chopped up like hay..." But soon despair overtook Mamai, who saw the stubbornness of the Russians and the defeat of his army. "Our hair is torn out, our eyes do not have time to shed hot tears, our tongues are growing numb" - this is how the chronicler "reconstructs" the words of the Horde commander.
Prince Dmitry, who fought in the front ranks so hard that his armor was dented, miraculously remained alive (with the help of the Lord God and the Mother of God, the chronicler emphasizes) and after the flight of Mamai’s army “returned to the God-protected city of Moscow, to his fatherland with a great victory.”
The big things can be seen from a distance - and the significance of the battle was fully appreciated later by the authors of "Zadonshchina", "The Tale of the Battle of Mamai", and then by scholars of the New Age.
The outstanding 19th century historian Vasily Klyuchevsky wrote that "Rus was born on the Kulikovo Field" thanks to the sword of Dmitry Donskoy, and not "in the hoarder's chest" of his grandfather, Prince Ivan Kalita. That is, the unity of the Russian lands was achieved by military means, and not by means of political "schemes", as they would say in our time. "The people of Vladimir, Muscovites, Suzdal, Nizhny Novgorod went to the Kulikovo Field, and the Russians returned from there," wrote the 20th century historian Lev Gumilev.
Now, when our country is once again uniting the historical Russian lands, the memory of the beginning of the revival of Rus is especially important. And it is even more important to know the true picture, clearing it of the myths that have accumulated over the centuries.
PLACE AND TIME CANNOT BE CHANGED
One of the most “fresh” myths that has appeared in recent decades among fans of alternative historical interpretations is that the battle with Mamai either did not happen at all, or it took place not on the territory of the current Tula region, 300 km from Moscow, but in Moscow itself, on Kulishki.
Hence, they say, the name - Kulikovo Field (the latest version was thrown in by the “new chronologists” Anatoly Fomenko and Gleb Nosovsky ).
And where the “official history” notes the place of the battle, supposedly no traces of it were found - not an arrow, not a spearhead.
In fact, several chronicles indicate that in the year 6889 from the creation of the world (in 1380) a great battle between Prince Dmitry and Mamai took place: Simeon, Sophia, IV Novgorod, Rogozhsky Chronicle.
This fact is cited by Oleg Dvurechensky, a research fellow at the Department of Preservation of Archaeological Heritage at the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is one of the leading modern researchers of this period of medieval Russia and a specialist in military archaeology.
In "Zadonshchina", written just a few years after the battle (late 14th century, the earliest surviving list dates back to the 15th century), the Don and Nepryadva are indicated as the location of the battle. The very name of the literary monument refers to the area beyond the Don River, in the steppe beyond the then borders of the Russian principalities. That is, no "Moscow Kulishki".
NOT QUITE THE BATTLE OF KULIKOVO
It should be noted that the very name “Battle of Kulikovo”, “Battle on Kulikovo Field” is quite conditional, modern (but not at all “alternative”) historians believe.
According to one version, one of the first to use the name "Battle of Kulikovo" was the chief prosecutor of the Holy Synod, and part-time amateur archaeologist Stepan Nechayev. He also suggested erecting a monument to the medieval battle that took place "in the dachas of my estate, which retains the name of the battle itself, in preference to other surrounding ones, namely near the village of Kulikovo."
According to another assumption, the “Kulikovo field” was first mentioned in the 16th century.
But in any case, as Dvurechensky emphasizes, in the chronicles and other documents of his time, the 14th century, there is no talk of any "Kulikov". Only an exact geographical reference is given.
Therefore, it is more correct to call the battle the Battle of the Don, scientists believe.
There is also some confusion with the dating of the battle. It is generally accepted that the battle took place on September 21 (the same date became the official anniversary). The reason is clear: the battle took place on September 8 according to the old style, "by default" 13 days were added to the date and the result was the 21st. But in fact, for the 14th century, the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars was not 13 days, but eight. Therefore, the correct date is September 16, 1380.
MAMAI IS A SEPARATIST FROM THE DNIEPER, A WESTERNER, BUT NOT A KHAN
Another common misconception is that our enemy Mamai is called the Khan of the Golden Horde. But he was neither a legitimate Khan nor a Chingizid.
Mamai, who also bore the Islamic name Kichig-Muhammad, was a Turk (or a Turkified Mongol) from a noble, but not "royal" family that rose under Khan Uzbek. But he was a childhood friend and son-in-law of Khan Berdibek. With the death of the latter, the dynasty of Batu's descendants, considered legitimate, came to an end in the Golden Horde.
While the Moscow princes were painstakingly collecting the lands of the disintegrated ancient Rus', the Horde began a period of "half-decay". The Volga steppe was engulfed in "great turmoil", civil strife, when twenty-one khans changed on the throne in Sarai-Batu.
In this game of thrones, the governor of Crimea and the Northern Black Sea region, Mamai, played an active role, who, under the slogan of restoring the Batu family to the throne, tried to put his puppets on the throne.
Having failed to overcome the conditionally legitimate khans, who had fortified themselves in the capital Sarai, Mamai created his own, as they would say now, self-proclaimed state - the Mamai Horde. Its headquarters were located in the lower reaches of the Dnieper, on the territory of the Kakhovka Reservoir.
Mamai differed from other participants in the "zamyatni" by his orientation toward the West of that time - he sought an alliance with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Genoese colonies in Crimea, and even with the Most Serene Venetian Republic. At the same time, he distributed his own labels for the Grand Duchy through puppet khans - first to the young Moscow prince Dmitry (the future Donskoy), then to his rival Mikhail of Tver. But, from the point of view of the Golden Horde, he was a troublemaker without any legitimacy.
It is significant that Mamai’s army was finished off by the conditionally legitimate khan Tokhtamysh, the same one who later burned Moscow.
TATARS, EUROPEANS AND "NOT QUITE RUSSIANS"
In 1374, Dmitry Ivanovich resolutely refused to pay tribute to the Mamai Horde; in response, the “separatist general” laid siege to Moscow, and then, having gathered his forces, moved into a decisive battle.
And here it is necessary to clarify the composition and number of Mamai’s troops.
It is generally accepted that this was a war between the Russians and the Tatar-Mongols. However, three armies moved against the Muscovites, Vladimirites and Yaroslavlites gathered by Dmitry Ivanovich in August-September 1380: Mamai's Horde itself, the army of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Jagiello and the troops of the Ryazan Prince Oleg Ivanovich.
Only by historical chance did Jagiello and Oleg not manage to reach the field near Nepryadva and help Mamai, but the allies robbed the Moscow troops returning from the battle.
So it was a war with part of the Horde, and with the “Europeans” from Lithuania, and with those Russians who considered themselves something separate from Rus' and opposed to it.
On the other hand, recently the opinion has become widespread that a significant part of Mamai’s army consisted of Genoese – crossbowmen or some kind of “black infantry”.
This version about the Italians in Russia was spread thanks to the writer and publicist Alexander Shirokorad. But, as the learned secretary of the Kulikovo Field Museum-Reserve, historian Alexei Vorontsov, explains, although Mamai was friends with the Genoese colonies in Crimea, he could not have recruited a sufficient number of soldiers there. Especially if you consider that Genoa was then at war with Venice.
So if Italian mercenaries did appear on the Don field, their numbers were insignificant. In any case, no documents from the 14th century on the large-scale recruitment of Genoese "PMCs" have survived.
PROPORTIONATE SCALE
And here an important question arises: how many warriors met at the Don and Nepryadva? It must be said that historians have long been misled by medieval Western sources. Thus, the Franciscan monk Ditmar of Lubeck wrote in his chronicle:
"There was a great battle at Blue Water between the Russians and the Tatars, and then four hundred thousand people were killed on both sides; then the Russians won the battle." This is obviously about the Battle of the Don - Ditmar mentions the Lithuanians who robbed the Russians returning to Moscow. The 18th century historian Vasily Tatishchev already wrote about 600 thousand participants in the battle.
But, as the modern researcher of the Battle of Kulikovo Oleg Dvurechensky believes, the scale of the armies is much more modest (by modern standards). But it is quite consistent with the number of medieval armies, the core of which were princely squads.
Most likely, there were up to 9 thousand fighters on both sides, primarily cavalry - which can be considered a major battle by the standards of the 14th century.
The political consequences of the Battle of the Don were obvious - having united, the Russian princes knocked out one of the serious forces in the Horde "game of thrones" of the 14th century. Exactly a century later, the "standoff on the Ugra" of the troops of Ivan III and the Great Horde of Khan Akhmat put an end to the formal dependence of the Russian state on external forces. Then began the period of collecting the fragments of the Genghis Khan empire: from Kazan, Astrakhan and Siberia to Crimea.
The historians' conclusions are confirmed by field findings, including those made by 21st century archaeologists: the battle did take place and was quite brutal.
NEW FINDS
Thus, in the spring of 2024, archaeologists led by the leading scientist of the Kulikovo Field Museum Andrei Naumov discovered for the first time on the battlefield a spearhead - a metal tip on the back of the shaft that served as a support during battles - and two iron arrowheads.
Earlier, for the 642nd anniversary of the battle in 2022, new finds were exhibited in the museum: two plates of armor, a spear socket, four arrowheads, a fragment of the front panel of a pectoral cross-encolpion with the image of Archangel Michael, and even a “kalach-shaped flint” (fire steel).
These archaeological relics confirm descriptions of fierce close combat and mass shooting on the battlefield: one of the new arrowheads is of the armour-piercing type, with a massive diamond-shaped feather designed to pierce chain mail.
The symbolism of the finds is of particular interest. Thus, the fragment of a bronze mace that was found, according to the head of the archeology department, Evgeny Stolyarov, "belonged not just to a warrior, but to a person of high social rank," which may indicate the presence of a military leader on the field.
Many of these finds support the chronicle version - the artifacts correspond to the era and environment of the 14th century. However, new questions arise. In 2006, Naumov and his co-authors reported six underground anomalies measuring approximately 12x12 m, discovered by the Loza georadar and presumably interpreted as mass graves of 14th century warriors.
Each new find either reinforces the traditional narrative (for example, cross pendants and personal amulets serve as confirmation of the faith and status of warriors) or gives rise to new versions and clarifications, forcing historians to reinterpret sources and excavations.
Modern methods make this work much easier. In 2021, the battlefield was scanned by LiDAR over an area of about a thousand square kilometers, which made it possible to create a georeferenced 3D terrain model.
Powerful metal detectors today find even tiny fragments of weapons and horse harnesses that could not be found 30 years ago. Archaeologists also use unmanned vehicles: the first test flights have already allowed them to obtain detailed aerial photographs of settlements and immediately identify facts of barbaric plundering of archaeological monuments.
The combination of new technologies gradually clarifies the topography and contents of the battlefield, bringing scientists closer to establishing the full picture of the Battle of the Don. Which we will still call Kulikovo - we can't rewrite the classic poem by Alexander Blok.