I decided to continue my excursion into the world of soldiers with an article dedicated to the medieval warriors of Russia.
Every boy in the Soviet Union played with these heroes.
And the origins of these flat soldiers can be found in the so-called Nuremberg miniature, which began to be mass-produced in Germany from the end of the first half of the 19th century. The founder of the production of flat figures of tin soldiers was the Nuremberg master Joachim Gottfried Hilpert, who lived in the 18th century. He produced the Prussian army of Frederick the Great, and the figurine of Frederick himself brought him additional glory.
A bit of history
It is difficult to say why in the USSR it was the flat form that gained popularity, and later, in the period when volumetric figures were actively produced in neighboring European countries, we focused on flat ones.
I think the explanation here is simple: the first is the economy in production, the second is the inertia in the production of toys, the third is the Soviet soldiers of the 50-60s. XX century. originate from the soldiers of the 30-40 years of production of private cooperatives, and they were all flat too. You can even observe the evolution of some figures from the cooperative 40s to the massive 70s, they practically did not change. The developed forms made it possible to produce a lot, to give a "shaft" without working on quality.
With the beginning of the introduction of plastics in the production of toys in the 50-60s of the twentieth century. and in the Soviet Union they switched to the production of toy soldiers from plastic, especially since this made it cheaper and made it possible to make large volumes.
If we talk about the ancient Russian toy army, then I was always surprised by their aesthetics: rather strange poses of heroes that were difficult to use in battle. One, for example, of the vigilantes holds a sword only with a guard and behind a guard, without a handle.
It can be assumed that the sculptors who worked during this period were seriously influenced by the works of the artists of the "Russian Art Nouveau" V. M. Vasnetsov and I. Ya. Bilibin, authors of different, but many depicting ancient Russian warriors in the Art Nouveau style. I. Glazunov, who was fashionable during this period, who also wrote Russia, did not differ in originality in the depiction of warriors. All the same type in appearance and armament, from the 10th to the 17th century, under the general name of the “Old Russian warrior”. This is probably why there was more expression in the miniatures, movement, one might say, epic, but little realism.
But the late 70s - early 80s were a time of change, in the GDR and Poland, voluminous soldiers were produced, at the same time, the Donetsk Toy Factory began to produce voluminous soldiers, the children already had something to compare with.
I have already written in an article dedicated to the Viking soldiers that today there is an opinion that we did not need to purchase molds from the Mars company (USA) for the Donetsk plant, but create our own: take not the Vikings and Indians, but from their history. This, of course, would be correct, but it is known for certain that this decision (to purchase American forms) was justified by cost savings in its own development.
At the same time, there was a dispute about whether we needed a military toy in general or not: if the party leadership believed that our peaceful society did not need soldiers, the Komsomol believed that such a toy educates future soldiers and it is necessary.
Heroes in the USSR
So, the first to appear at the very end of the 60s was the “Russian Warriors” set, known today as the “Don Campaign”. About twenty years it was produced by the "Progress" plant, a set consisted of 8 foot and 2 horse soldiers, it cost 45 kopecks. This is undoubtedly, as it is now customary to say, a cult set, produced in millions of copies and duplicated by other toy factories (the Saratov Toy Factory made soldiers in blue). It is this set with a strange aesthetics that I wrote above about.
At the same time, the Progress toy factory, which was created in 1966 by the merger of two metal toy factories, produced the same Russian soldiers in metal (TsAM). Horsemen cost 25 kopecks, foot soldiers cost 15 kopecks. They were sold separately at Soyuzpechat kiosks and as a set in toy stores.
It is also worth remembering about similar warriors that were produced at the plant to them. 50th anniversary of the USSR in the city of Kotovsk, Tambov region. These are very strange, little artistic figures, but because of their "strangeness" and extreme rarity, they are very popular with collectors.
The big disadvantage of all these sets was the lack of opponents: with whom to fight?
However, the same question could be addressed to all sets dedicated to our army, with rare exceptions.
But here's another massive set, which every boy had, corrected this mistake. This is "Battle on the Ice" (or "Battle on the Ice") worth 1 RUB. 10 kopecks. The number of soldiers - 20: 10 Russians and 10 German knights, in each detachment there are 3 horsemen and 7 footmen. Russians were red or crimson, Germans green. Later brown and gray.
If the equipment of the ancient Russian soldiers vaguely resembled the warriors and vigilantes of the 13th century (which are only the "mirrors" on the chest of the infantrymen and Alexander Nevsky), then the "knights", with the exception of one figure, date back to the end of the 14th century and above. The cult film of S. M. Eisenstein "Alexander Nevsky", which was constantly shown on television to the delight of the boys at that time, contributed to the real correct battles of "ours" with the knights. The myth, which the film and the soldiers unwittingly promoted, showing the soldiers of the Order with such armored vehicles, is tenacious even today, although a new myth has appeared: now they talk about heavier weapons of the Russians compared to the Germans.
The cheapness of these sets made it possible to "reconstruct" the battle on Lake Peipsi, the scheme of which, thanks to the 4th grade history textbook and the wonderful "Book of Future Commanders" by Anatoly Vasilyevich Mityaev, was known to any boy.
In the 70s of the twentieth century, ancient Russian warriors and their opponents were produced by the Astretsovskaya metal toy factory located in the Dmitrovsky district of the Moscow region. Astratsovo is a historical place for the production of Russian tin toys from the middle of the 19th century to 1990. It is a pity that such a wonderful tradition of tin toy production has died, just recently, while in Madrid, I saw a shop of modern Spanish tin toys: wonderful clockwork motorcycles, cars, trains and clowns.
At the Astretsov factory, a set of warriors was made from TsAM alloy, from the end of the 80s without blackening. The set consisted of 8 horsemen: four Russians and four of their opponents. They were sold in a box and placed on a plastic stand. The sculptor of these figures was B. D. Savelyev. His son, D. B. Savelyev continued this series, making 16 foot soldiers. The soldiers were extremely fragile, especially the infantrymen, which is probably why the same figurines in plastic were released, but only horse ones. It's amazing how the control authorities missed such fragile products, literally breaking in their hands. Naturally, the plastic ones were dramatically more stable and unbreakable.
At the same time in Leningrad at the Leningrad Carburetor Plant (LKZ) the set "Battle on the Ice" was produced.
The set consisted of 14 enemy warriors: six on foot and eight horsemen, the knights "chained" in armor around the 14th century. The horses have huge tails to support the figures. The use of such elements gave unreality, fabulousness to such soldiers. The figures were placed on a high plastic stand covered with a transparent lid.
The complex and small elements of the soldiers quickly broke down, therefore, despite the large volumes of production, few of these figures have survived to our time. It should be added that in Leningrad every boy had them and … that's right, they were actively smashing them with the help of cubes. Therefore, these days the set is extremely popular among collectors and its value is constantly growing.
The author of the figurines was the famous sculptor L. V. Razumovsky, who created many toys.
The production of this set, albeit in plastic, was continued at the beginning of the XXI century. in Ukraine - in Lugansk by the Alpanus company. The figures were slightly smaller than in the Leningrad set. They were made of multi-colored plastic and, unlike their metal older counterparts, they are unbreakable.
L. V. Razumovsky was the author of another set, which has been successfully produced since 1987, according to other information, since 1991, and is being produced to this day. We are talking about the set "Battle of Kulikovo" (later - "Russia and the Horde"). The set was made in multi-colored plastic. Initially, it was produced at the Leningrad carburetor plant. The Rusichi were red, and the Horde were blue.
Now you can find sets of different colors. After the LKZ, the figures were produced by the Baltic Chemical Company and Plastmaster. There are 14 figurines in total, 5 of them are horsemen and 2 are foot soldiers. Among the Tatars, all are horsemen, but one figure is double; an archer stands next to the rider with a lasso.
These are very well-made miniatures, more or less reflecting the realities of the 14th century.
Below I give a photo of the painted version of the Battle of Kulikovo, it is worth mentioning that it is not customary for collectors of soldiers to paint figures, they must be preserved in their original form.
In addition to Soviet flat warriors, it is worth noting that in the PPR cooperatives produced, among other things, soldiers on the topic of the early history of Poland, outwardly they were very similar to the Old Russian army, judge for yourself:
But in the 80s, the Progress association released the first voluminous Old Russian warriors, and an unconditional innovation was the fact that the warriors had removable weapons, that is, in the game it was possible to change the swords, spears, axes and maces of the warriors. The release of the "Russian squad" on a scale of 60 mm, and even voluminous, was a step forward, but all this happened at the end of the children's interest in such a toy.
The heroes of our days
In the 90s, interest in soldiers fell completely, especially since the topic of ancient military history has become completely irrelevant. Although, for example, DZI produced its own sets until the very beginning of the 21st century. During this period, the Technologist company appeared in the city of Gelendzhik (1987), it produces inexpensive soldiers for board games and coloring in sizes 40-54 mm. In her line "Artmaster" there are Russians and Varangians.
During perestroika, the direction of military-historical miniature made of metal (VIM) began to develop actively. And only at the beginning of the 2000s, the efforts of enthusiastic collectors of Soviet soldiers made an attempt to develop the process interrupted in the late 1980s. The desire to make it massive was not crowned with success: the children played other games, and, just as in the case of soldiers in the 60s, cinema played a significant role in promoting the toy. And the heroes were no longer heroes and Vikings, pirates or cowboys. Interestingly, the Lego company in 2004, being at the stage of bankruptcy, began to actively use serials to promote its toys, and this saved the situation.
In the same year in Moscow, the collector of soldiers Timur Zamilov created the company "Ura", which produced an assortment of soldiers from TsAM that exceeded the entire Soviet one. Among them was a set dedicated to the battle on Lake Peipsi.
They were flat, well-painted warriors, made in a deliberately toy style. The set was sold in a beautiful gift box.
St. Petersburg companies also did not want to lag behind Moscow, which also created flat metal soldiers on the themes of the famous battles of Alexander Nevsky. The Soldiers for All Seasons company released a set of flat opponents in the Battle of the Ice from white TsAM, in 2019 they made the same figures in multi-colored plastic.
And the company "Soldiers of Publius" first created a set of horsemen and infantry based on the battle on Lake Peipsi, then the master and Alexander Nevsky in metal, then foot soldiers on the theme of the battle on the Neva, first in TsAM, and later in plastic.
Their next stage was the release of volumetric figures on a scale of 60 mm on the theme of the Grunwald and Kulikovo battles, and, of course, on the theme of the battle on the ice of Lake Peipsi. It is worth noting that the Battle of Grunwald was fought for the first time in Russia, before it was done only in Poland.
When developing master models, the company relies on popular scientific reenactment, which gives special credibility to its figures.
The "Engineer Basevich" company has released a set of volumetric soldiers "Ancient Slavs" in a scale of 54 mm. And in 2018, the company released an excellent set # 23 of foot "Nomads", which includes the Khazars, Pechenegs and Polovtsians. The company traditionally has a very high level of detail and elaboration.
The recently appeared company "Warriors and Battles" is actively developing the theme of the game flat soldier. She did it as part of the series “Kievan Rus. Friends and Enemies”of horsemen, infantry, magi, the squad of Ancient Rus, as well as their opponents, the Polovtsians.
In conclusion, I would like to say that the soldiers are, after all, primarily a toy, so you should not judge them very harshly, from the heights of our historical knowledge. I will say more, often expensive and drawn by professional artists VIM also does not stand up to criticism from the point of view of historical reconstruction. It's another matter whether the authors are facing such a task?
And the last thing. Today, voluminous plastic soldiers achieve a high degree of detail and historical accuracy.
This concludes my review of the soldiers - the warriors of Ancient Russia.
