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Thread ID: 20116 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2005-09-10
2005-09-10 08:41 | User Profile
Battle of Kulikovo From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The Battle of Kulikovo (Куликовская битва in Russian), also called Battle on the Snipes' Field, was fought by the Tartars and Mongols (the Golden Horde) against the Russians. The battle took place on September 8, 1380 at the Kulikovo Field near the Don River (now Tula Oblast) and resulted in a Russian victory. The battle's site is commemorated by a memorial church, built to a design by Aleksey Shchusev.
Combined Russian armies under the command of the Grand Duke of Vladimir, Dmitri Ivanovich of Moscow (called "Dmitry of the Don" afterwards) faced much larger Horde forces under the command of Mamai, the strong military leader of the Golden Horde. Mamai's allies, Grand Prince Oleg of Ryazan and Grand Prince Jogaila of Lithuania were late to the battle. The old Russian poem Zadonshchina says 150,000 Russians and 300,000 Tataro-Mongols, but the physical size of the Kulikovo Field does not allow such a quantity of troops. Most probable figures would be 80,000 Russians and 125,000 Tataro-Mongols.
The battle was opened by a single combat of two champions. The Russian champion was Alexander Peresvet, a monk from the Trinity Abbey sent to the battle by Saint Sergius. The Horde champion was Temir-murza (also Chelubey or Cheli-bey). The champions killed each other in the first run. The legend states that Peresvet did not fall from the saddle, while Temir-murza fell.
After approximately 3 hours of battle (from noon to 3 p.m.) the Russian forces were successful, although suffering great casualties, in holding off the Horde's attack. The cavalry of Vladimir, Prince of Serpukhov (Dmitri's cousin), led by the chief strategist of the battle, Dmitri Bobrok, Prince of Volynia launched a flanking surprize counter strike and achieved victory over the Horde forces. Mamai escaped to Crimea, where he was assassinated by his enemies, leaving the Horde under the command of Tokhtamysh.
This victory was the beginning of the end of Mongol rule in Russia, which officially finished with the Great standing on the Ugra river a century later. Its spiritual importance for the unification of the Russian lands was even more important. As one historian put it, the Russians went to the Kulikovo Field as citizens of various principalities and returned as a united Russian nation.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kulikovo[/url]
2005-09-10 09:10 | User Profile
The leader of Tatar horde in this battle, Mamai Khan, was an ancestor of Czar Ivan IV the Terrible:
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamai[/url][COLOR=DarkRed] [SIZE=3][FONT=Times New Roman]
[B]"Mamai /B was a powerful military commander of Golden Horde in the 1370s, who resided in the western part of this nomadic state, which is now the Southern Ukrainian Steppes and the Crimean Peninsula. He split apart from Khans of the Golden Horde, trying to establish his own state.
"Mamai, holding military rank of tumenbashy (tyomnik, тёмник in Russian ââ¬â commander of 10,000 troops, loosely equivalent to a modern general) was not Chingiz Khan's descendant and thus ineligible for the Saray throne. In 1378ââ¬â1380 he tried to force Russians to pay annual tribute to him instead of the Golden Horde.
"After being badly defeated by Russians at the Battle of Kulikovo (1380), [B]Mamai was assassinated in Kaffa (Crimea) by the Genoese, who could not forgive the total waste of a military unit of Genoese crossbowmen who were slaughtered by the Russians[/B]. The memory of Mamai has endured for centuries. [B]Contemporary Russian has an expression [I]like Mamai passed[/I] to describe an utter mess[/B].
[B]"One of his sons later escaped to Lithuania, and, serving Grand Prince Vytautas the Great, received the title of Prince of Hlinsk with multiple estates around the modern city of Poltava (Ukraine)[/B]. This legendary events could take place in the 1400s, although the first documented mention of the Hlinski princes is made in 1437. Mikhail Hlinski was the most illustrious member of the family: he studied at the German university, took part as a knight in the Italian Wars, was the most powerful man in Lithuania in the 1500s, but later emigrated with his brothers to Muscovy and helped the Russians to retake the city of Smolensk. [B]His niece Yelena Glinskaya was married to Vasily III, Grand Prince of Moscow, and Ivan the Terrible was her son[/B]."[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR]
The famous Stalingrad fighting point [B]Mamayev Kurgan[/B] was also named after him:
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamayev_Kurgan[/url]
Petr