Surely to most readers, the title of this article may seem paradoxical. What mysteries can there be in the Battle of Kulikovo? After all, for a long time everything has been clearly and clearly described in school and university textbooks, in solid monographs on the history of military art, where even maps of the battle are given.
HOW MUCH AND WHY?
Alas, in fact, only one thing is known for certain - on September 8, 1380, the Moscow prince Dmitry Ivanovich won a military victory. And that's all. Although the modern researcher Shavyrin rightly remarked: "With books dedicated to the Kulikovo battle, one can lay out the entire field on which it took place." However, he also points out that "almost everything written goes back to three primary sources: the short Chronicle story, the poetic" Zadonshchina "and the rhetorical" The Tale of the Mamayev Massacre."
So, the first riddle. Mamai goes to war against Russia. But is his army large? Academician Boris Rybakov claimed that more than 300 thousand people. His senior friend, full member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Mikhail Tikhomirov, believed that 100-150 thousand. Historians Skrynnikov and Kuchkin limit themselves to 40-60 thousand. The minimum figure - 36 thousand - is given by their colleague Kirpichnikov.
Now the second question: what is the purpose of the campaign? The overwhelming majority of the tsarist-Soviet-democratic historians answer unequivocally: Mamai-de wanted to become the second Batu, to punish the Grand Duke of Moscow Dmitry Ivanovich for many years of non-payment of tribute, to exterminate the Russian princes and replace them with the Khan's Baskaks, etc.
But where did Mamai get the strength for such a grand event, which neither Berke, nor Tokhta, nor Uzbek, nor other rulers of the Golden Horde dared to take? But Mamai in 1380 controlled, at best, only half of this feudal state, while the other half was owned by his rival Tokhtamysh. Moreover, he was Chingizid (that is, a direct descendant of Genghis Khan) and a real khan, and the temnik Mamai was an impostor who seized the throne.
Elementary logic dictates that in such a situation Mamai should first deal with his rival in the Golden Horde, and only then deal with Russian affairs.
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And the Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich stopped paying tribute, not because he became so strong, but precisely because of the "hush up in the Horde", when it was simply unclear who was to pay and who was not. The rebellious temnik would have gained the upper hand in the Horde civil strife, and in a few weeks he would have received everything that was due from Moscow. By the way, this happened immediately after the Battle of Kulikovo, only Dmitry paid off in full in gold and silver with Tokhtamysh.
Some researchers argue that Mamai intended in Russia to feed his army, endow it with booty, hire new fighters for the stolen money and valuables, in order to then strike Tokhtamysh. But the Temnik was an experienced military leader and, of course, perfectly remembered the crushing defeat that the Horde army suffered in the battle on the Vozha in August 1378. And therefore he hardly doubted that he would have to fight the Russians seriously, that the success of the campaign was by no means guaranteed, even if all available forces were attracted to it.
UNCONTINUED OPPONENT
Everything is relatively clear with the army of the Moscow prince. He managed to collect not only his army, but also the soldiers of the allied princes - Rostov, Yaroslavl, Belozersk and Starodub. The Lithuanian princes, Andrey and Dmitry Olgerdovichi, also came to him with their squads. But participation in the battle of the Tver squad, as it is sometimes argued, is more than doubtful.
Who was the enemy of the Moscow prince is still unknown. The Russian chronicler asserted that Mamai moved to Russia "with all the Tatar and Polovtsian strength, and, moreover, he understood the rats of the Germans, Armenians and Fryaz, Cherkasy and Yases and Butases."
The historian Yegorov comments on this as follows: “It is difficult to say who in this list is understood as desermen, because in the annals this term refers to Muslims in general. However, it is not excluded that the annalistic indication may refer to the Muslim detachments recruited in Azerbaijan, whose ties with the Golden Horde had a long-standing character. The same detachment of mercenaries was invited from Armenia. Among the Armenian feudal lords, apparently, mercenarism was quite widespread, which confirms the presence of a mercenary army from the Armenians among the Seljuks.
The detachments of the Italian colonial cities of the southern coast of Crimea and Tana at the mouth of the Don usually appear under the name of the Chronicle Fryazov.
This last indication of the chronicle allowed the exuberant imagination of our historians and fiction writers to play out with might and main. From book to book, the "black Genoese infantry" wanders, marching in a thick phalanx along the Kulikovo field. However, in 1380 the Genoese colonies in the Black Sea region were at war with Mamai. Theoretically, Venetians could have ended up on the Kulikovo field. But only a few hundred of them lived in the city of Tana-Azana (Azov) along with their wives and children. And the Genoese, even if they were in alliance with Mamai, could hardly send several dozen people to help him.
In turn, the Armenian scientists have long ago stated that since no documents were found on the recruitment of fighters for Mamai in Armenia, our ancestors did not fight on the Kulikovo field. But … If any of them ended up on the Don, then they were “from the Armenian community in Bulgar”.
However, some Tatar historians have also been proving for some time now that, they say, the forefathers of the modern titular nation of Tatarstan did not fight on the Kulikovo field. There is, however, another point of view. Thus, Professor Miftakhov, referring to the "Code of Bulgarian Chronicles", writes that the Kazan Emir Azan sent to Mamai the prince (Sardar) Saban with five thousand horsemen. “During the farewell to Sardar Saban, Emir Azan said: 'Better to perish you than the whole state.' After that, the Bulgar detachment set off on its way to join the Temnik's troops. Their meeting took place at the end of August 1380 “on the ruins of the old fortress Helek”.
It is said in the Bulgarian annals about … Mamai's artillery. Namely: three cannons were placed at his tent, which were controlled by a master named Rail. However, the Russian horsemen swooped in so quickly that the servants did not manage to open fire, and Rail himself was taken prisoner.
Yuri Loshchits, author of a 295-page book about Dmitry Donskoy, writes: “The battle of September 8, 1380 was not a battle of nations. It was a battle of the sons of the Russian people with that cosmopolitan servile or hired rabble, which had no right to speak on behalf of any of the peoples - neighbors of Russia."
Of course, this is a very convenient formulation. But isn't there too much "rabble" gathered in the steppes between the Don and the Volga? After all, it could make up the largest - a fairly large gang, for the sake of the destruction of which it was hardly necessary to collect the forces of almost all of Russia.
WHERE TO BE A PRINCE?
The role of Dmitry Moskovsky in the Battle of Kulikovo is very strange. In The Legend of the Mamayev Massacre, the main role in the battle is assigned not to Dmitry, but to his cousin Vladimir Andreevich Serpukhovsky. But something else is not clear - according to all three sources, the Grand Duke actually refused to control the troops.
Allegedly, even before the battle, Dmitry "pulled off the Tsar's one" and put it on the beloved boyar Mikhail Andreevich Brenko, to whom he also gave his horse. And he commanded, in addition, his red ("black") banner "to carry over him [Brenk]."
Not a single Russian prince behaved like that. On the contrary, the authority of the princely power in the 9th-15th centuries in Russia was so great that often the warriors did not want to go to war without the prince. Therefore, if there was no adult prince, the prince was taken on the campaign. So, the three-year-old prince Svyatoslav Igorevich was put on a horse and ordered to throw a small spear. The spear fell at the feet of the horse, and this was the signal for the beginning of the battle. Why remember the X century, Dmitry himself at the beginning of his reign, at the age of 10-15, the Moscow boyars were repeatedly taken on campaigns.
Let's try to imagine the technique of changing the face of the prince. This is not 1941 for you, when a colonel or general pulled off his tunic and put on a private's tunic. The expensive and durable armor was perfectly tailored to the warrior's figure. Putting on someone else's armor without an appropriate fit or even alteration was both inconvenient and risky. Finally, the prince's horse was worth a fortune. For years he carried the prince and helped out in battles. It was possible to mount someone else's horse, so that in case of defeat, to escape from the battlefield, but fighting on someone else's horse was simply dangerous.
So the version about changing clothes, as well as about the chopped down tree, under which Dmitry Ivanovich appeared, who did not have a single scratch, we will have to put aside. Analyzing the sources of the XIV-XV centuries, one can only conclude that Dmitry Donskoy did not directly participate in the battle. And that's why, apparently, we will never know.
CHAIN OF UNCLEAR
No less interesting is the question of where the famous and bloody slaughter took place. According to the drawings (maps) of the 18th-19th centuries, the Kulikovo field was a steppe "glade" stretching for 100 km throughout the south of the present Tula region from west to east (from the upper reaches of the Snezhed river to the Don) and 20-25 km from north to south (from the headwaters of the Upa to the headwaters of the Zushi).
The reader will ask, what about the monument to Russian soldiers standing on the Kulikovo field? Everything is very simple.
Once upon a time there was a nobleman Nechaev, director of schools in the Tula province, a freemason, a Decembrist, a member of the Union of Prosperity, a close friend of Ryleev, at the beginning of the 19th century. Like all Decembrists, he showed great interest in the struggle of the Russian people against the Horde.
In June 1820, the Tula governor Vasiliev raised the question of building a monument "to mark the place where Russia was liberated and glorified in 1380".
Needless to say, the place of the battle was found on the land of the wealthy landowner Nechaev. In 1821, in the journal Vestnik Evropy, Nechaev wrote: “The Kulikovo field, according to historical legends, was between the Nepryadvoya, Don and Mecheya rivers. Its northern part, adjacent to the confluence of the first two, still retains the ancient name between the inhabitants”. Further, Nechaev points to the toponyms preserved "in this land" - the village of Kulikovka, the village of Kulikovo, the Kulikovsky ravine, etc. In these places, according to Nechaev, “they plow the most ancient weapons, bristles, swords, spears, arrows, as well as copper and silver crosses and foldable. Before the plow of the farmer tore off human bones. " But the author believed that the "strongest proof" (we note this) of his opinion was "the position of the Green Oak Forest, where the ambush was hidden, which decided the bloody battle of Kulikovo." According to Nechaev,the remains of the oak grove still exist in the dachas of the village of Rozhestvena, or Monastyrshchina, “lying at the very mouth of the Nepryadva”.
Alas, all of Nechaev's arguments do not stand up to elementary criticism. For example, why is "Green Oak Forest" a proper name? And how many such oak forests are there in the vast territory of the Kulikov field?
It should be noted that while repelling the raids of the Crimean Tatars throughout the 16th century, dozens of battles and skirmishes took place in the Kulikov field area. Nevertheless, relatively few weapons were found on the Kulikovo field (in its broad sense). Moreover, the finds were almost evenly distributed both geographically and chronologically - from the 11th to the 17th centuries. (Cast-iron cannonballs, lead bullets and a flintlock pistol cannot refer to 1380!) The most amazing thing is that no group burials of warriors were found on the Kulikovo field, both in the narrow and in the broad sense.
In the course of a big battle, which ended with the complete defeat of the Mamai army, there must inevitably be hundreds, if not thousands of prisoners. Since the 10th century, Russian chronicles have always given their number, and the most notable captives are named by their names. But in this case, all our sources of the XIV-XV centuries are silent about them, and modern historians and fiction writers have ignored this curious fact. So where did the Tatar prisoners go?
Here the following scheme seems to me the most probable. The army of Dmitry Ivanovich, without fighting and without interference, passed to the place of battle through the lands of the Ryazan principality. This could only be done with the consent of Oleg Ryazansky. Apparently, there was some kind of agreement between Oleg and Dmitry on joint actions against Mamai. And having fulfilled the terms of the agreement on his part, Prince Oleg counted on a part of the war booty. And Dmitry did not want to share - after all, Oleg did not fight directly on the Kulikovo field. Denying Oleg his legal requirements, Dmitry Ivanovich hastily leaves for Moscow. He seeks to appear in the city immediately following the news of the great victory, before Moscow learns of the huge losses. And therefore, the carts coming from the Kulikovo field were abandoned to the mercy of fate. And thrown, like an annoying supplicant, calling for justice, Oleg.
And Oleg also had to feed his warriors and restore the ruined principality once again. And he ordered to rob the Moscow carts traveling on his land and take away the full taken on the Kulikovo field …
The fact of the plunder of the Russian army is indirectly confirmed by the news of the German chronicles of the late XIV - early XV centuries, which say that the Lithuanians attacked the Russians and took away all the spoils from them. Considering that for the German chroniclers there was no clear division between Russia and Lithuania, under the name “Lithuanians” they could mean both the army of Prince Jagiello and Oleg Ivanovich.
So there can be only two options on the issue of prisoners. Either the Tatars on the Kulikovo field did not flee in panic from the place of the battle, but retreated in relative order, or the prisoners were repulsed by the Ryazan or Lithuanians, and later released for ransom. Neither the chroniclers of the XIV-XV centuries, nor the historians of the XIX-XX centuries were satisfied with both options, and they simply omitted the issue of the prisoners.
By the way, the scheme that has existed for two centuries - Dmitry Donskoy broke the ridge of the Golden Horde, and Oleg Ryazansky is a scoundrel and a traitor - to put it mildly, is far from reality. Could a state with a "broken ridge" force Russia to pay tribute for another 100 years? A curious moment. Dmitry Donskoy was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church in June 1988, and Oleg Ryazansky began to be venerated as a saint almost immediately after his death on June 5, 1402. And the canonization of Oleg took place "from below", and not at the direction of the authorities, fortunately, the Ryazan princes in the 15th century were not at all up to him.
This article outlines only a part of the many mysteries of the Kulikov field. To unravel them, it will take a lot of work for historians and archaeologists. Although, unfortunately, most are unlikely to find reliable answers.
And the last thing. Least of all, the author would like someone to perceive the story of absurdities in the writings of our historians as a blasphemy against our soldiers. Eternal glory to the warriors who fought on the Kulikovo field!
Alexander Borisovich Shirokorad - historian, publicist