Kulikovo Field

--~------.-----.----.-----------------------.
On a broad, flat plain near the river Don,
a fourteenth-century prince of Moscow
shattered the invincibility of his Mongol
overlord and, in effect, formed the
Russian nation.
/
The sun sets on Kulikovo Field, by the
Don, where Grand Duke Dmitri
Ivanovich led his army against the
Golden Horde. A series of modern
illustrations by M.A. Skobelev depicts
the battle on the following pages; they
are accompanied by excerpts adapted
from Zadonschina (Beyond the Don),
the epic poem about the battle. The
cast-iron helmet (above right) is typical of those worn by Russian
warriors of the era.
On September 8, 1380, at Kulikovo
field on the banks of the river Don,
Grand Duke Dmitri Ivanovich of
Moscow defeated the Mongols who had
ruled Russia for more than a century.
As a result of his victory, the myth of
Mongol invincibility was shattered.
Dmitri did not entirely shake off the
rule of his overlords. That would take
another century, until 1480, when his
great-grandson Ivan III would refuse to
kneel down and prostrate himself before the Mongol emissaries sent to collect tribute. But Dmitri's victory at Kulikovo prepared the way for his descendant's act of defiance. It turned the tide
in Moscow's favor, confirmed its preeminence over rival principalities, and,
in effect, formed the Russian nation.
Early in the thirteenth
century,
Mongol cavalry had ridden into Russia
and then farther, into central Europe,
raiding Hungary and Poland and reaching as far as Germany and the Adriatic
Sea. Each highly disciplined warrior
carried a pair of composite bows, with a
range of 200 to 300 yards, and herded
along two or three extra horses. The
hardy horsemen conducted their raids
in wintertime, when they could easily
cross snowfields and frozen rivers.
Everywhere, their invasion was terrible
as they galloped through, killing, burning, and looting. Those who did not
have the foresight to flee into the forest
were taken as slaves, if they were young
enough, or slaughtered if they could
not be sold or used. Cattle, grain, and
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anything else valuable was seized;
whatever could not be carried away was
burned. And the situation was worse in
Russia than elsewhere, because the
raiders stayed: Mongol control of Russia was thus imposed, and it lasted
more than two centuries.
The empire of the Mongols-or the
Tatars, as the Russians called them
(Tatar was originally the name of one
Mongol tribe)-reached
halfway
around the world, stretching from
China to the western border of Russia.
This enormous domain was ruled by
the great khan, whose succession to
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the title had to be confirmed by a
council at Karakorum in Mongolia. Of
course, even with swift Tatar horsemen
acting as couriers, it was impractical
for anyone to exert direct control over
such a vast area. The empire evolved
into four loosely allied segments, all
owing allegiance to the great khan.
Foremost among them was Mongolia
itself, with its immense adjunct, China.
Subordinate to them were the great
khanates of Central Asia; those of Persia, with its subject lands in the Near
East; and finally the domain of the
Golden Horde, which reached from
central Siberia to the Polish border.
Ordu, or horde, is the Mongolian
word for camp; and to the Tatar encampment with its circle of felt tents,
every Russian prince had to make a pilgrimage upon his accession, to bow
down, swear fealty, and pledge to collect taxes and conscript recruits for the
khan of the Golden Horde. One of the
/
first things the Tatars had done after
seizing Russia was to order a census to
facilitate taxation and the drafting of
recruits. As soon as the census was
completed, they started exacting a 10
percent share of everything that had
been left alive. All Russians, whether
peasant or prince, had to tithe for the
khan. (Ten was a favorite Tatar number. Cenghis Khan, the founder of the
Mongol Empire, had derived a decimal
army organization from Turkic and
nomadic Iranian tribes: His entire
force was divided into units of 10, 100,
1,000, and 10,000. And the lands he
and his successors conquered were
similarly organized.)
Dmitri Ivanovich, who was still a
boy at the time of his accession in
1359, had been laden with gifts and
tribute money and brought to Sarai,
the Golden Horde's capital on the
Volga, to prostrate himself before the
khan. In return Dmitri received the
khan's official patent as grand duke of
Vladimir, a title that Moscow's rulers
had traditionally held and which made
them preeminent
among Russian
princes. gut by 1359, the Tatars' grip
on Russia was loosening a bit. The
fourteenth
century was a difficult
time for the Mongols: Their dynasties
were driven from Persia in 1344 and
from China in 1368, and the Golden
Horde itself fell prey to internal dissension. In a twenty-year period it was
ruled by twenty different khans. The
Golden Horde split into two halves,
one west of the Volga and one east.
The western half-including
its RusMHQ
23
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sians-was
controlled
by a general
named Mamay, who could not be
khan himself since he was not descended from Cenghis Khan.
On the other hand Moscow, with
easy access to the rivers along which
Russia's trade traveled, was gradually
increasing
in size and power. The
Mongols had destroyed the ancient
Russian metropolis of Kiev. The surviving Russian principalities-Suzdal
and Novgorod, Moscow, Riazan, Tver,
and a few others-jostled
among
themselves for primacy, and Moscow
seemed to be winning. But Dmitri's
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realm was surrounded by enemies. To
the west, it faced the rising and aggressive power of Lithuania. To the
north and south lay the rival principalities of Tver and Riazan. Though Tatar
power was waning, the vast territories
of the still-formidable
Golden Horde
lay along its eastern and southern
flanks. Foreseeing trouble, Moscow replaced the Kremlin's wooden walls
with stone in l367. The fortification
was well timed: In l368 a Lithuanian
army headed east toward Moscow. But
it did not venture to attack the new
Kremlin walls, contenting itself with
merely looting the countryside.
Then Dmitri found his title contested: A rival khan gave his patent to the
ruler of Tver. After the Lithuanians
left, Moscow went after Tver. Dmitri
defeated his rival and again traveled off
to the Golden Horde, armed with
enough money to repurchase his title
from yet another khan. This ruler and
Mamay, who ruled him, gladly took
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the money. It would come in handy
when the time arrived to suppress the
growing power of Moscow.
It was apparent to them that, although Dmitri might come bearing
gifts, Moscow was getting strong
enough to challenge the Tatars. Indeed,
Dmitri soon sent one of his generals
with a strong detachment of troops
from Moscow and from the allied principality of Suzdal into the territory of
the Golden Horde to seize control of
part of the course of the Volga. A Russian chronicler wrote that when this
army approached the Tatar city of Bul-
gari, the Tatars "sent thunder from the
fortress walls." But cannon thunder
didn't stop Dmitri's men; they captured
Bulgari, imposed tribute on it, and
made it formally switch its allegiance
from the Golden Horde to Moscow.
Mamay concluded that he would
have to test Moscow's apparent willingness to defy the Tatars. In 1375 he
sent an army to one of Moscow's vassal
cities, Nizhni Novgorod, to remind its
citizens that they, like Moscow, should
abandon any thoughts of independence and bow to the suzerainty of the
Golden Horde. This army never got
home again: Most of its troops \ ere
killed, and the survivors were imprisoned. Then, after a while, they too
were killed. So Mamay resolved that it
was necessary to crush Moscow. In
1378 he sent another army deep into
Moscow's territory. Dmitri greeted it
with an army of his own, which, surprisingly, employed the traditional
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tactics that had proved so effective for
the Mongols. His cavalry enveloped
the Tatar army and attacked it on both
flanks, while Dmitri himself assaulted
the center. The Tatars were thrown
into disarray. Escaping the battlefield,
fleeing Tatars drowned trying to cross
the river ozha, and only darkness enabled the survivors to escape to safety.
To Dmitri it now seemed possible to
shake off the Tatar yoke.
As the Russians succeeded in using
Tatar tactics against the Tatars, so
Mamay prepared to turn the tables and
use Russian tactics against them. Like
their ancestors who had first conquered Russia, the Tatars had traditionally relied only on cavalry: a light
cavalry of bowmen, each carrying two
powerful composite bows requiring an
enormous pull; and a heavy cavalry
armed with sabers and lances, plus
battle axes or maces. For protection,
these troops wore leather helmets and
leather cuirasses or coats Ofmail. Generally, a swarm of Tatar light cavalry
began each battle, moving forward and
withdrawing again and again. Then
the heavy cavalry attacked the enemy's
center or right wing.
Instead of following these tactics,
Mamay decided to muster an infantry
battalion to fight alongside his cavalry.
He/hired mercenaries among his Circassian, Armenian, and Iranian subjects and reinforced them with a
strong, well-trained battalion of infantrymen from the powerful Genoese
trading settlements in the Crimea. The
bulk of his army still comprised cavalry from the nomadic tribes of the
steppe-not
only Mongols but also
tribesmen from various Turkic and
Iranian groups who were thoroughly
integrated into the Mongol horde.
As allies Mamay enlisted the independent Russian principality of Riazan,
south of Dmitri's domain, and the
Lithuanians, led by Duke Jagiellon
whose broad forest lands lay west of
Moscow. Both were aware that if
Moscow continued to expand, it could
very well swallow them up someday (as
indeed it did; and only now has its grip
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loosened). It probably never occurred
to any of them that Moscow might
someday swallow up the Tatars too.
Mamay spent all of 1379 preparing
for war. Of course, these preparations
could not be hidden. Russian agents at
the court of the Golden Horde kept
Moscow informed of them. For his
part, Dmitri tried to build up
Moscow's forces. The principality of
Tver remained
independent
of
Moscow, as did the great ancient trading republic of Novgorod, but Dmitri
enlisted aid from both. Meanwhile,
Mamay's own spies kept the Tatars informed of Dmitri's moves. "We are
going to eat Russian bread and grow
rich on Russian treasure," Mamay reportedly declared. "Does Mitya, my
servant, in Moscow know
that I am
~•.I:
going to see him?" he is said to have
asked some Russians visiting his
court, contemptuously
using the
diminutive form of Dmitri's name.
"We have seven hundred and three
thousand warriors. Can Mitya, my servant, entertain us all?"
Dmitri's defiant Russians and
Mamay's Tatars met at Kulikovo field
(inset map, opposite); Mamay's
Lithuanian allies, on the march,
turned back after learning the out,come. The battle took place (opposite) a day after Dmitri managed to
cross the Don first and deploy his
troops on the field. From his camp on
a height, Mamay directed a fierce attack against the Russian center,
which broke after hours of heavy
fighting (1). The Tatars then pushed
the weakened Russian left wing back
toward the Don as well (2). The Russian right flank was more successful (3) but could not come to the others' aid. Suddenly, Bobrok's hidden
reserve of fresh Russian troops attacked out of the oak forest overlooking the Smolka (4). In disarray, the
Tatars abandoned the field and fled
through the dusk, away from the
Don (5). The exhausted Russians
briefly pursued them, then returned
to Kulikovo to burg their dead.
During the summer of 1380, the
Lithuanian army began marching
eastward, planning to join up with
Mamay's forces at the river aka, south
of Moscow. Meanwhile, Russian troops
began moving down toward Moscow
from Novgorod and from the distant
districts of Dmitri's realm, which by
then extended far into the north,
halfway to the White Sea. Dmitri gave
orders for his entire army to gather by
the end of August at the town of
Kolomna, on the aka. To reach their
destination, the forces had to travel on
three separate roads. This was, one
chronicle reports, because the Russian
army took up so much room. Actually,
it was probably just a precaution
against surprise attack. Accompanying
the troops were merchants whom
Dmitri had purposely invited along.
They would not be able to contribute
anything to the fighting, but they were
useful as propagandists: Wherever
they traveled afterward, they would report that Dmitri Ivanovich of Moscow
had dared to challenge the Tatars.
Dmitri's men reached the aka well
before the Lithuanians did. At Kolomna the army was divided. Dmitri himself took command of the center. The
right wing he placed under the command of his cousin Prince Vladimir.
The left wing-which
was to playa
critical part in the battle-was
entrusted to a prince named Brenko of
Bryansk. After a general review-and a
prayer service-the
army moved
southward toward the river Don, hoping to intercept the Lithuanian army
before it could join the Tatars.
When Dmitri reached the Don,
scouts reported that the Lithuanians
were still some distance away. At the
Don, Dmitri's staff debated whether to
cross the river to where the Tatars
were camped or to stay on the safer
Russian side. Dmitri himself was all
for going over. Once across, his men
would have to fight with their backs to
the river; they would not be able to retreat. There was also a tactical advantage to crossing: The presence of the
river at the back of the Russian forces
WHITE SEA
o
I
Kulikovo
300
I
miles
~
\)
RUSSIAN
PRINCIPALITIES
September 8, 1380
_
7T
Russian Crossing of the Don
Before the Battle
e Novgorod
o
Suzdal
Tver
e
eM
oscow
Nizhni
O'f.~ Novgorod
KOlomna~
LITHUANIA
e.
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•J
"
e .
Hiazan
~Dmitri's
o
,
;:x,
\.'"
Mamay's
Forces
Forces
Tatar Retreat
Kiev
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~
Russian
Pursuit
I DMITRI!
Nepryadva
, •........"
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ensured that the Tatars would be unable to envelop their positions. Dmitri
decided to cross. Afterward, he learned
how wise his decision had been: Tatar
advance guards reported that Mamay
was rushing ahead hoping to prevent
the crossing before Jagiellon and his
Lithuanian army arrived. And by this
time the Lithuanians were only about
twenty-five miles away.
One chronicle reports that the Russians explored the bank of the narrow
Don until they found a place where
they could ford the river. Another account, a sixteenth-century epic poem
called The Tale of the Battle on Kulikovo Field, reports that the Russians
built boats to take them across the
river and then burned the boats behind
them. A medieval miniature illustration of one copy of the epic depicts the
boats. However Dmitri's army traveled,
it managed to get across, then took up
positions on Kulikovo field.
After rising steeply from the riverbank, the battlefield sloped gently
downward from woods overlooking the
Don. Dmitri stationed his right wing
so that it was protected by a stream
called the Nepryadva, a small but unfordable tributary of the Don. His left
wing spread out along woods behind
which lay the steep banks of another
srrfall river, the Smolka. There was no
place for the Russians to retreat; even
more important, there was no way the
Tatar cavalry could surround them.
Before his troops were deployed,
Dmitri and one of his men crouched
down on the battlefield and each put
an ear to the ground, hoping that by
listening to the "earth throbbing" they
could estimate the size and direction
of the Tatar army. Scholars have not
had to depend on the "earth throbbing" to determine that Mamay's army
was nowhere near the 703,000 men he
had boasted of. The Tatar force probably consisted of about 30,000 men,
most of them mounted. Dmitri's army
was around the same size, although it
was weaker because it contained fewer
cavalry units. Camped on the field of
Kulikovo the night before the battle,
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Dmitri's 30,000 men extended three
and a half miles along the Nepryadva.
The day of the battle, September 8,
started out foggy. On their heights the
Russians could see through the fog a
torrent of Tatar cavalry rolling down
from the heights opposite and moving
across the battlefield. Around noon the
fog lifted. As soon as it disappeared, a
huge Tatar warrior rode out in front of
his army and challenged the Russians
to send a champion forward to engage
in single combat. Dmitri had anticipated this. Before marching off to Kulikovo, he had visited a monastery
near Moscow and enlisted two warriormonks to serve as his own champions.
One of them, Peresvet, took up the
challenge. He and the Tatar, both
holding lances, charged,.~~ch other at
top speed. They collided, and the enormous force of their impact killed the
Tatar, knocked over both of their horses, and sent the Russian monk toppling to the ground. The Russian survived the collision, but not for long.
Of course, the encounter settled
nothing. As soon as it had ended, the
battle was engaged along a wide front,
with Dmitri himself fighting in the
center. He had ordered one division of
his troops, under the command of a
prince named Bobrok, to leave the left
wing once the battle was joined and
slip away to hide in the oak forest that
overlooked the Smolka. From there it
would be able to emerge when necessary to reinforce any Russian formation that might be broken by the
Tatars. The division slipped off quietly
according to plan, and the enemy did
not observe its departure. Dmitri
planned another ruse as well: He took
the precaution of dressing one of his
soldiers in his own royal robes and setting him to fight under the black banner that was usually borne before the
grand duke of Vladimir.
As the Tatars moved forward, the
Russians themselves began a slow advance. Then, because there was no
room to maneuver, the Tatars stopped.
"And so they stood," The Tale of the
Battle on Kulikovo Field reports, "with
each warrior resting his lance on the
shoulder of the man before him." Indeed, the ranks were so close that
crowd pressure and trampling by horses are said to have killed as many men
at Kulikovo as arrows and lances did.
The Tatar archers had the wind in
their favor, and the sun to their backs.
On a height overlooking the battlefield, Mamay sat in front of his tent
signaling reinforcements to rush to
one spot or another whenever he felt it
necessary. Dmitri fought in the vanguard in the center of his army, which
bore the brunt of the Tatar attack.
When one horse was killed under him,
he mounted another. Certain that they
knew where he was fighting, the
Tatars aimed for the black banner-flying over the soldier who was serving
as Dmitri's stand-in. The banner fell
and the soldier wearing Dmitri's royal
robes was killed. Dmitri himself was
unhorsed again, and he seemed to disappear from the battlefield.
After two hours of fighting, one
troop of Tatar reinforcements almost
succeeded in separating the Russian
center from the left wing. The Russian
right wing was forced to send men to
reinforce the center. At three o'clock
the Russian center finally broke. As
the Tatars drove it back toward the
Don, they turned to their right to attack the Russians' weakened left wing.
That too was driven back toward the
river. Although the Russian right wing
had held and even began advancing
against the Tatars, it was unable to
move ahead very far for fear of breaking off its connection with the center.
Hidden in the forest, Bobrok had
been receiving reports from scouts
posted in trees where they could see
the action of the battle. Finally, when
the Tatars had broken the Russians'
formations and were forcing the Russian left wing farther and farther back
toward the Don, Bobrok's scouts informed him that the Tatars had moved
so far ahead that their rear ranks were
now vulnerable to him. Although they
didn't know it, they were effectively
surrounded. When Bobrok learned
/
this, the hidden Russian soldiers-all
fresh troops, more than ready for battle
after waiting on the side for hours-attacked, riding in against a heavy wind,
which suddenly shifted in their favor.
The attack caught the Tatars completely by surprise and threw their ranks
into disarray. Confused and disheartened, they quickly abandoned the field,
pursued by the right wing of the Russian army and the newly engaged
troops of the left wing.
High on his hill overlooking the
battlefield, Mamay panicked. As the
sun began to set, he abandoned his
camp and fled with his men through
the dusk, away from the Don. The
Russians tried to pursue them, but, exhausted by the battle and unable to go
very far, they soon gave up the chase.
After returning from the pursuit,
Dmitri's cousin Prince Vladimir stood
among the corpses on the battlefield
and called the roll of princes to learn
who had survived the terrible slaughter. The dead were, as one chronicle
reports, "lying in heaps as high as
hayricks." About half of all the combatants, Russians and Tatars alike, had
been killed. When Prince Vladimir
called out Dmitri Ivanovich's name, no
answer came. Trumpets were sounded
to summon the troops together and
inform them that their commander
was among the missing. One man reported having seen Dmitri unhorsed
and, apparently wounded, trying to
leave the battlefield. When the troops
were sent searching for him, two common soldiers-the chronicler makes a
point of reporting that they had no
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/'
titles-discovered
him lying in the
woods under a fallen tree, unconscious and with his armor "smashed in
many places." But Dmitri was, as the
chronicler reported, "lusty and virile
in person, large and of solid build,
broad shouldered and portly." He had
lost consciousness but had suffered no
permanent injury, and he awoke to
discover himself victorious.
None of the chronicles report the
use of firearms at Kulikovo, though
the year of the battle, 1380, was exactly when the introduction of firearms
was beginning to transform warfare.
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But the field of Kulikovo was too
crowded and the action too fast to
allow the use of the period's slow and
cumbersome guns. Once the battle
had begun, Dmitri's men and the
Tatars were fighting at such close
quarters that gunfire would have
killed friend and foe indiscriminately.
Both Russians and Tatars had to rely
on the traditional weapons-lances,
swords, battle axes, and bows and ar-
rows-making
Kulikovo one of the
last medieval battles. Within two years
after he fought at Kulikovo, Dmitri
managed to acquire guns for his
Moscow garrison and cannon to set
atop the Kremlin's stone walls.
After giving up their pursuit of the
Tatars, Dmitri's men had two orders of
business. First they had to get ready to
meet the threat from the Lithuanian
army, which they believed was still
marching toward them to reinforce
Mamay, But Dmitri soon learned that
Jagiellon had turned his army around
and headed home upon learning the
/
outcome of Kulikovo. The second task
was not so easily accomplished. The
survivors had to separate Russian
corpses from Tatar corpses and prepare two mass graves to receive them.
The victory at Kulikovo greatly
strengthened Moscow's claim to supremacy among the Russian principalities. It so heartened the people that the
day of the battle is still commemorated
in the Russian Orthodox church. In
honor of his triumph, Dmitri was given
a new name: Dmitri Donskoy, Dmitri
of the Don-just as his great-greatgrandfather, Prince Alexander of Nov-
gorod, had become known as Alexander
Nevsky after defeating the invading
Swedes beside the river Neva. But
Dmitri failed in his main goal, freeing
Moscow from the Tatars. Unfortunately
for him, a new Tatar general came
along to defeat Mamay and reunite the
Golden Horde; and less than two years
after Kulikovo, the Tatars seized
Moscow and looted and burned it. Once
again, Moscow and the other Russian
principalities had to pay taxes and
bribes to the Tatars. But within a few
years internal troubles began weakening the Golden Horde again. Moscow's
road to independence was to be slow
and troubled, but the victory at Kulikovo made it clear that Russia's independence was bound to come.
NORMAN
KOTKER,a frequent contributor to MHQ, is the author of The
Earthly Jerusalem and editor of the
Horizon History of China.
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