We have already discussed with you the Mysteries of the Kulikov Field, let's continue the topic …
The Battle of Kulikovo in 1380 is traditionally considered one of the largest battles of the late Middle Ages both in significance and in scope. Without touching on the first, let us dwell in more detail on its second aspect - the scope, trying to estimate the size of the army put forward by Dmitry Ivanovich and his vassals on the Kulikovo field.
In conditions when there are no precise indications regarding the mobilization potential of the northeastern Russian principalities, no military registers, much less the painting of the Russian "regiments" in the battle, any reasoning regarding the number of troops of Dmitry Ivanovich and his allies will be of an estimate nature. However, a discussion of this problem will allow us to define some framework limitations, within which the size of the coalition army can be considered more or less reasonable, not fantastic and will be close to real.
In the domestic historiography of the Battle of Kulikovo, the range of estimates of the size of the Russian army is very large - from 100-150 thousand to 30-50 or even less than 1,000 soldiers.
So how much was it really?
Pre-revolutionary historical science adhered to the first value. So, V. Tatishchev in his "History of the Russian" cites the figure of 400 thousand, M. Shcherbatov - 200 thousand, N. Karamzin believed that the army of Dmitry Ivanovich numbered “more than 150 thousand horsemen and footmen. S. Soloviev, who compares the battle with "the Catalan massacre, where the Roman commander saved Western Europe from the Huns", gives the same amount. D. Ilovaisky determined the number of troops of Dmitry Ivanovich in “too 100 thousand”. The same point of view was shared by Russian military historians, for example, P. Geisman and the authors of the collective work on Russian military history "Russian military force".
For a long time, Soviet historiography was dominated by the old estimate of the number of Russian troops at 100,000-150,000 soldiers. This was the opinion, for example, of the authors of the collective Essays on the History of the USSR, who referred to the chronicle evidence, and L. Cherepnin. The same figure was followed much later in the essay "Military Art" in the collective work "Essays on Russian Culture of the XIII-XV centuries" by B. Rybakov.
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Meanwhile, even E. Razin in his classic "History of Military Art" came to the conclusion that "the total number of the Russian army probably did not exceed 50-60 thousand people." This assessment was revised downward by one of the most authoritative specialists in the history of Russian military affairs of the Middle Ages, A. Kirpichnikov. He believed that at most 36 thousand warriors gathered on the Kulikovo field from the side of Dmitry Ivanovich, since an army of a larger size (100 or more thousand) would represent "an uncontrollable crowd of people who only interfere with each other." The opinion of S. Veselovsky stands apart, who noted that there were 5-6 thousand people on the Kulikovo field on the Russian side. "In the front". Today, attempts have been made to even more radically revise the size of the Russian army. For example, A. Bulychev believedthat in the Russian army there could have been about 1-1.5 thousand horsemen, and the whole army, together with servants and bagmen, amounted to 6-10 thousand people.
This range of estimates is not surprising given the unsatisfactory state of the sources for the history of the 1380 campaign. At first glance, a lot of them have survived - these are both chronicle testimonies and literary works. But their value is by no means equal. Regarding the first group of sources, chronicles, it should be noted that the first, short, version of the chronicle legend about the battle, originally placed on the pages of the Trinity Chronicle, written in Moscow - "About the Great Battle, like on the Don", appears at the beginning of the 15th century, that is, very soon after the battle itself. This story has come down to us in the Rogozhsky Chronicler and in the Simeon Chronicle. Around the same time, a story was compiled, which was placed on the pages of the Novgorod First Chronicle of the younger edition. But alas,all these chronicles give practically no specific information about the purely military aspects of the battle. The extensive chronicle story, contained, for example, in the Resurrection Chronicle, was created much later and bears the imprint of the influence of the literary tradition of covering the Battle of Kulikovo that had formed by that time and has a pronounced journalistic character.
More interesting, at first glance, seem to be literary monuments - first of all "Zadonshchina" and the famous "Legend of the Mamayev Massacre". The first monument was created, as many researchers believe, at the end of the 1380s or at the very beginning of the 1390s, i.e. immediately after the battle. However, alas, in its original form it did not reach us, and due to the peculiarities of the genre, neither "Zadonshchina", much less the later "Legend", created, apparently, at the end of the 15th or at the very beginning of the 16th century, inspire confidence. Outlining as a whole a fairly complete general picture of events, they give clearly overestimated figures on the number of soldiers on both sides. So, "Zadonshchina" (according to the Synodal list) gives us a figure of 300 thousand "forged armies", and the "Legend" (in the Cyprian version) - even 400 thousand "troops of horse and foot".
And since the sources at our disposal do not allow us to draw any definite conclusions about the number of Russian troops in the Kulikovo field, it remains to resort to calculations based on indirect evidence as modern sources containing more or less accurate information about the features of military affairs of that time, so and data from archeology and paleogeography.
In order to get an idea of the approximate framework values of the number of armies of Dmitry Ivanovich, you can look at the number of military contingents that the princes and individual "lands" had at the end of the 14th - 1st half of the 15th centuries.
With regard to the 1st half of the 15th century, there are such data, and they seem quite plausible. So, on July 3, 1410, 150 Russian soldiers under the command of the governor of the Nizhny Novgorod prince Danila Borisovich Semyon Karamyshev and the same number of Tartars of the Tsarevich Talych took and plundered Vladimir to the ground. Vasily the Dark's rival Dmitry Shemyak had about 500 noblemen in 1436.
The Lithuanian prince Ostrozhsky in 1418 freed the Lithuanian prince Svidrigailo from imprisonment with 500 "nobles". Another Lithuanian prince, Alexander Czartoryski, not wanting to swear allegiance to Vasily II, left Pskov in 1461 and took with him "… the courtyard of his forged army of fighting men of 300 people, to cut the koshovs …".
The Pskovites in 1426, during the conflict with the Grand Duke of Lithuania Vitovt, sent 50 people to help the besieged Opochka, and the main Pskov army, led by the mayor Selivester Leontyevich and Fyodor Shibalkin, entered into battle with the troops of Vitovt, having at their disposal 400 fighters. Prince Vasily Yurievich took Vologda in 1435, having a "squad" of 300 people.
10 years later, in the winter of 1444-45, the Lithuanians came to the western borders of the Moscow state in revenge for the Russian campaign to the Kaluga places. They were followed by the noblemen of the appanage princes of Mozhaisky, 100 people, Vereisky - another 100 and Borovsky - 60 people. According to other sources, there were only 300 of them. Lithuanian chronicles speak of 500 Muscovites.
Finally, in the notorious battle near Suzdal in the summer of 1445, in which Vasily II was defeated by the Tatars and taken prisoner, his "regiment" together with the "regiments" of his vassals, princes Ivan Mozhaisky, Mikhail Vereisky and Vasily Serpukhovsky, numbered less than 1 thousand horsemen, and The Vladimir "regiment" of voivode Alexei Ignatievich, who came to his aid, numbered 500 soldiers. The Tartars opposing them were, according to the chronicler, 3.5 thousand.
Thus, the number of "regiments" in the 1st half of the 15th century, i.e. in fact, immediately after the Battle of Kulikovo it is measured in hundreds, at best a little more than 1 thousand soldiers. The princely "courtyards" number several hundred horsemen, usually from 300 to 500, but no more, the Vladimir "police" "regiment" (and Vladimir is not the last city in these places) - also 500, while some detachments of small patrimonials from estates do not exceed hundreds.
Knowing the approximate order of numbers (tens and hundreds, but not thousands of soldiers), let us now turn to the composition of the Russian army. The latest and most justified attempt to analyze it was made by A. Gorsky. Comparing the information contained in the annals and stories about the composition of Dmitry Ivanovich's army and comparing them with the data of the campaigns of 1375 and 1386/1387, the researcher came to the conclusion that the troops from Moscow, Kolomna, Zvenigorod, Mozhaisk, Volok, Serpukhov, were included in the army of Dimitri. Borovsk, Dmitrov, Pereyaslavl, Vladimir, Yuriev, Kostroma, Uglich, Galich, Bezhetskiy Verkh, Vologda, Torzhok, as well as military contingents exhibited by the principalities of Belozersky, Yaroslavl, Rostov, Starodubsky, Molozhsky, Kashinsky, Vyazemsko-Dorogo Novosilsky. To them it is necessary to add also the "courts" of the rogue princes Andrey and Dmitry Olgerdovich and Roman Mikhailovich Bryansk, and, possibly, a detachment of Novgorodians.
A. Gorsky also did not exclude the participation in the battle (in the regiment of Vladimir Andreevich) detachments from the Yelets and Murom principalities, as well as from Meshchera. An analysis of the information from the earliest sources gives slightly different, smaller values - 9 princely "households" and 12 "land" "regiments" and, possibly, Ryazanians (Pronian -?) And Novgorodians.
Taking into account these data and information about the number of "courtyards" and "land" "regiments" (very roughly counting the princely "courtyards" for 500 horsemen each, and the "land" "regiments" composed of small patrimonials, 100 each), one can to assume that the total number of warriors exhibited by Dmitry Ivanovich was between 6 and 15 thousand people.
The spread is very large. The knowledge that we have today regarding the nature of the battle site allows us to narrow this framework.
Both rati were, most likely, equestrian. Real infantry, peshtsy, were hardly present at Kulikovo Field. The unprofessional "zemstvo" militia, assembled from time to time and lacking appropriate training, was unable to withstand 30-km marches for several days (unless it was put on carts for greater cruising speed - such a practice, judging by later times, existed, but in this case it will inevitably be few in number). It is possible that some of the Russian horsemen could dismount. This is unlikely, although it cannot be completely ruled out. In any case, among the finds of weapons at the Kulikovo field, the tip of one spear was found, which was the weapon of the Russian pawns.
It can be stated with a high degree of confidence that even for 15-16 thousand troops, the Kulikovo field was too small - with a field size of 1.5 per 1 km, at best, about 5-6 thousand riders could more or less freely operate on it (i.e. we see the figure named by S. Veselovsky in the order of assumption). We consider this figure to be the most appropriate to both the battle conditions and the tactics of that time, and, therefore, the most probable. And if we assume those named in "Zadonshchina" and in the so-called. "Synodics of the Assumption Cathedral", which was published by N. I. Novikov, lists of Russian losses (11 governors and about 400-500 "boyars", i.e. small patrimonials who appeared under the princely banners "horse, crowded and armed", at the head of a small, 3-5 people. Retinue) corresponding in general traits of reality, then the loss in the battle only by killed at least 10% of experienced, professional warriors,whose preparation lasted for decades should have been regarded as very difficult.
Vitaly Penskoy, "On the number of Dmitry Ivanovich's troops on the Kulikovo field", Military affairs of the Golden Horde: problems and prospects of study