“This day is one of the great days of military glory: the Russians saved Moscow and honor; approved Astrakhan and Kazan as our citizenship; they avenged the ashes of the capital and, if not forever, then at least for a long time appeased the Crimeans, filling them with the corpses of the bowels of the earth between Lopasnea and Rozhai, where to this day stand tall mounds, monuments to this famous victory and glory of Prince Mikhail Vorotynsky. Thus, the great Russian historian Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin determined the historical significance of the Battle of Molodi.
Surprising and incomprehensible is the fact that such an outstanding event, on which no more, no less, but the very existence of the Russian state depended, practically and today remains little-known and deprived of the attention of historians and publicists. We will not be able to find references to the Battle of Molodi, which is 444 years old these days, in school textbooks, and in the curricula of higher education (with the exception, perhaps, only of some humanitarian universities) this event also remains without due attention. Meanwhile, the historical role of the Battle of Molodi is no less significant than the victory of the Russian army on the Kulikovo field or Lake Peipsi, than the Poltava or Borodino battle.
In that battle, on the outskirts of Moscow, a huge Crimean-Turkish army came together under the command of Khan Devlet-Giray and the regiments of the Russian prince Mikhail Vorotynsky. According to various sources, the number of Crimean Tatar troops "who came to fight the Tsar of Moscow" ranged from 100 to 120 thousand, with whom there were also up to 20 thousand Janissaries, provided to help the Great Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. The protection of the southern borders of Muscovy was then provided in total by the garrisons scattered from Kaluga and Tarusa to Kolomna, their total number barely reached 60 thousand soldiers. According to various estimates, about 40 thousand people took part in the battle with Devlet-Giray itself. And, despite such an obvious advantage, the enemy was smashed head-on by the Russian regiments.
Well, let us today turn to this little-known page in the chronicle of our history and pay tribute to the staunchness and heroism of the Russian army, which, as it happened more than once, defended both the people and the fatherland.
Historical background of the battle at Molody. The invasion of Devlet-Giray in 1571 and its consequences
The history of Russia in the 16th century is in many ways the history of the restoration of Russian statehood, which over the course of many centuries was destroyed by princely civil strife, the Golden Horde yoke. On the southern and eastern borders, Muscovy was compressed in a tight ring by the fragments of the Golden Horde: the Kazan, Astrakhan, Crimean Khanates, the Nogai Horde. In the west, the primordially Russian lands languished under the oppression of the powerful Kingdom of Poland and Livonia. In addition to constant wars and predatory raids of hostile neighbors, Russia was suffocating from an internal misfortune: endless boyar squabbles for power. The first Russian Tsar Ivan IV, who was crowned king in 1547, faced a difficult task: in these conditions to survive and preserve the country, secure its borders and create conditions for peaceful development. It was impossible to solve this problem without military victories in such a neighborhood.
In 1552 Ivan IV went to Kazan and took it by storm. As a result, the Kazan Khanate was annexed to Muscovite Rus. Since 1556, Ivan IV also became Tsar of Astrakhan, and the Nogai Horde, led by Khan Urus, became a vassal to Moscow. Following the annexation of Kazan and Astrakhan, the Siberian Khanate recognizes itself as a tributary of Moscow. In addition, the Caucasian little princes began to seek protection from the Moscow Tsar for themselves and their peoples, both from the raids of the Crimean Tatars, and from falling under the rule of the Ottoman sultanate.
Moscow more and more pushed the boundaries of its influence on the Muslim states, which surrounded Russia from the South and East in a tight ring. The northern neighbor, which was gaining geopolitical weight, became a real problem for the Ottoman Empire and its vassal, the Crimean Khanate, who considered the Muslim states located along the borders of the Muscovite kingdom to be a zone, as they say now, of their geopolitical interests.
Another danger for the Russian kingdom hung on its western borders. In 1558, Ivan IV begins a war with Livonia, which at first developed quite successfully for the Moscow autocrat: a number of castles and cities were taken by storm, including Narva and Derpt. The successes of the Moscow Tsar forced Livonia to seek military-political alliances, and in 1561 the Livonian Confederation entered the principality of Lithuania, of which Livonia was a vassal. And in 1569 the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland merged into a single Rzeczpospolita. The military-political alignment of forces has radically changed not in favor of Moscow, and this was aggravated by the inclusion of Sweden in the war. Military operations became protracted, due to which significant forces of the Russian army in the early seventies of the 16th century, Ivan the Terrible was forced to keep in the Baltic States.
Thus, in the early 70s of the 16th century, the main military resources of Ivan IV were associated with the western theater of military operations. For the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire, a very convenient political configuration and distribution of military resources emerged, which they could not help but take advantage of. On the southern borders of the Russian kingdom, it became more and more restless. The frequent raids of the Crimean Tatars carried ruin to Russian settlements, captive men, women, children became profitable goods in slave markets on both sides of the Black Sea.
However, the border raids could not bring the Nogai Horde and the Siberian Khanate out of dependence, they could not tear Kazan and Astrakhan away from the Russian kingdom. This could only be achieved by breaking Moscow's capacity for a large-scale military confrontation. And for this a victorious war was needed.
In 1571, the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey gathers an army of forty thousand and moves to Moscow. Not encountering any serious resistance, he bypassed the chain of fortifications (the so-called "notch lines"), went to the outskirts of Moscow and set the city on fire. It was one of those fires that burned out the entire capital city. There are no statistics on the damage of that terrible fire, but its scale can be judged at least by the fact that practically only the Moscow Kremlin and several stone churches survived the fire. Human victims numbered in the thousands. To this must be added the huge number of overwhelmed Russians taken both in the attack on Moscow and on the way to it.
Having arranged the burning of the capital of the Russian kingdom, Devlet-Girey considered the main goal of the campaign achieved and deployed an army. Leading with them thousands of captured Russians (some sources say about 150 thousand people who were captured, who were taken by "living goods") and carts of looted goods, the Crimean Tatar army moved back to the Crimea. In order to emphasize the humiliation inflicted, Devlet-Girey sent a knife to the Moscow Tsar "so that Ivan would stab himself."
After the devastating invasion of 1571, Moscow Russia, it seemed, would no longer be able to rise. 36 cities were slaughtered, the burned down villages and farms were not counted at all. In the devastated country, famine began. In addition, the country waged war on the western borders and was forced to maintain significant military forces there. Russia after the invasion of the Crimeans in 1571 seemed to be an easy prey. The previous plans of the Ottoman Sultanate and the Crimean Khanate have changed: the restoration of the Kazan and Astrakhan Khanates was no longer enough for them. The ultimate goal was the conquest of all of Russia.
Devlet-Girey, with the support of the Ottoman Empire, is gathering an even larger army, which, in addition to the Crimean Tatar soldiers, included selected regiments of Turkish janissaries and Nogai horse detachments. At the beginning of June 1572, a hundred thousandth Crimean Tatar army moved from the Perekop fortress to Moscow. Part of the plan for the military campaign was the uprising of the Bashkirs, Cheremis and Ostyaks, inspired by the Crimean Khanate.
The Russian lands, as did almost everyone who came to Russia for centuries to fight, had already been divided among the khan's murzas. As they say in the annals of that time, the Crimean Khan went "… with many forces on the Russian land and painted the entire Russian land to whom what to give, as under Batu." … Devlet-Girey said about himself that he was going “to Moscow for the kingdom” and, in all, he had already seen himself on the Moscow throne. Tsar Ivan IV was destined for the fate of a prisoner. Everything seemed to be a foregone conclusion and it was necessary to inflict only the final fatal blow. There was not much more to wait.
Battle
What could the burnt-down Moscow, which did not heal its wounds, devastated by last year's invasion of the Crimeans, oppose such a force? It was impossible to withdraw troops from the western direction, where there were constant clashes with the Swedes and the Commonwealth. Zemsky garrisons guarding the approaches to the capital were clearly not enough to contain the powerful enemy.
To command the Russian forces, which were to meet the Tatar-Turkish horde, Ivan the Terrible summons Prince Mikhailo Vorotynsky. It is worth paying attention to the historical personality of this outstanding person for a while.
The fate of Prince Mikhail Ivanovich Vorotynsky, a descendant of the old Russian branch of the Chernigov princes, was not easy. After the capture of Kazan, he received not only the boyar rank, but also the highest rank of the Tsar's servant, which meant rising above all the boyar names. He was a member of the Near Tsar's Duma, and since 1553 Mikhail Ivanovich became the governor of Sviyazhsk, Kolomna, Tula, Odoev, Kashira, Serpukhov at the same time. But the royal favor, ten years after the capture of Kazan, turned into disgrace. The prince was suspected of treason and collusion with Alexei Adashev, after which Ivan the Terrible exiled him with his family to Belozersk.
… In the face of the impending mortal danger, Ivan the Terrible calls for the command of the disgraced prince, unites the zemstvo and oprichnina units into one army and gives them under the command of Vorotynsky.
The main forces of the Russians, numbering up to 20 thousand zemstvo and oprichnina soldiers, stood as border guards in Serpukhov and Kolomna. The Russian army was strengthened by 7 thousand German recruits, among whom Heinrich Staden's cannon crews fought, and there was also a small number of "pososny rati" (people's militia). 5 thousand Cossacks came to the aid under the command of Mikhail Cherkashin. A little later, about a thousand Ukrainian Cossacks also arrived. The total number of the army, which was to fight with Devlet-Giray, numbered about 40 thousand people - this is all that the Moscow kingdom could muster to repel the enemy.
Historians in different ways determine the date of the beginning of the Battle of Molodi. Some sources say July 26, 1572, when the first clash took place, most sources consider July 29 as the date of the beginning of the battle - the day when the main events of the battle began. We will not argue with either one or the other. Ultimately, let historians take care of the chronology and interpretation of events. It is much more important to understand what could have prevented a merciless and skillful enemy with a powerful and tested army, more than twice the Russian army, from crushing a mortally wounded and devastated country, which, by all indications, no longer had the strength to resist? What power could stop what seemed inevitable? What were the origins of not just victory, but the complete defeat of a superior enemy.
… Having approached the Don, on July 23, 1572, the Tatar-Turkish army stopped at the Oka, on July 27 the Crimeans began to cross the river. The first to cross the 20-thousandth vanguard of the Crimean army, which was led by Teberdey-Murza. He was met by a small guard detachment of "boyar children", in which there were only 200 soldiers. This detachment was headed by Prince Ivan Petrovich Shuisky. Shuisky's detachment fought desperately, but the forces were too unequal, almost all the soldiers of the detachment died in this battle. After that, the vanguard regiments of Teberdey-Murza reached the Pakhra River near today's Podolsk and stood there awaiting the approach of the main forces. On the night of July 28, the Oka also crossed the main forces of the Tatar-Turkish army.
Devlet-Girey, having thrown back the "right hand" regiments of princes Nikita Odoevsky and Fyodor Sheremetev in a bloody battle, moved to Moscow bypassing Tarusa and Serpukhov. Following him was the advanced regiment of Prince Khovansky and the oprichnina regiment of Prince Khvorostinin. The main forces of the Russian army were at Serpukhov. Vorotynsky also placed a "walk-gorod" (a mobile wooden fortress) there.
Thus, a strange, at first glance, arrangement arose: the vanguard and the main forces of the Crimeans were moving towards the Russian capital city, and the Russians were following in their footsteps. The Russians did not have any forces on the way of the Tatar-Turkish army to Moscow. In his book “Unknown Borodino. Battle of Molodino in 1572”A. R. Andreev cites the text of the chronicle, which said that the Russian troops followed in the footsteps of the Tatar army, because “So the king is more afraid that we follow him to the rear; and he is guarded by Moscow … .
The strangeness of the actions of Mikhailo Vorotynsky's regiments was actually part of his plan, which, along with the courage and desperate fearlessness of the Russian soldiers, ultimately led the Russian army to victory.
So, the sprawling army of Devlet-Girey was already its vanguard at the Pakhra River (in the northern environs of modern Podolsk near Moscow), and the rearguard barely reached the Rozhaika River near the village of Molody (modern Chekhovsky district of the Moscow region). This stretch was used by the Russian troops.
July 29 Mikhailo Vorotynsky throws a regiment of the young oprichnina governor Prince Dmitry Khvorostinin into an attack on the rearguard of the Tatar army. The rearguard of the khan's army consisted of powerful and well-armed infantry regiments, artillery and the khan's elite cavalry. The rearguard was commanded by two sons of Devlet-Girey. The enemy was clearly not ready for a surprise attack by the Russians. In a fierce battle, the khan's units were practically destroyed. The survivors, throwing their weapons, fled. Khvorostininsky guardsmen rushed to pursue the fleeing enemy and drove him to the point of collision with the main forces of the Crimean army.
The blow of the Russian guardsmen was so powerful and unexpected that Devlet-Girey was forced to stop the campaign. It was dangerous to move further to Moscow, leaving behind, in its undefended rear, significant Russian forces, and, although there were several hours to go to Moscow, the Crimean Khan decides to deploy the army in order to give the Russians a battle. What Vorotynsky had hoped for happened.
Meanwhile, the guardsmen of Dmitry Khvorostinin met in a fierce battle with the main forces of the khan's army. The Russians fought desperately and Devlet-Girey was forced, turning on the march, to bring more and more of his units into battle. And so, as it seemed, the Russians wavered and began to retreat. Vorotynsky's plan was that, by starting a battle, Khvorostinin's subsequent false retreat forced the khan's army to pursue him. And so it happened. Wanting to build on the success, the army of Devlet-Girey rushes to pursue the retreating Russians.
… While the guardsmen of Khvorostininsky smashed the rearguard of the Tatar-Turkish army and the khan's sons, and, afterwards, fought with the deployed main forces of the Crimeans, Vorotynsky deployed a "walk-gorod" on a convenient hill near the village of Molody. The Russian fortifications were reliably covered by the Rozhaya River (now this river is called Rozhayka).
And so July 30th Khvorostinin's detachment, using a prepared maneuver, directs the forces of Devlet-Giray pursuing him to the hurricane fire of cannons and pishchal located in the "walk-town" and at the foot of the hill of Russian troops. The real meat grinder began. The superior forces of the Crimeans over and over again rolled onto the shelves of the Russians, but could not break through the defenses. The fight dragged on. Devlet-Girey was not ready for such a turn of events.
31 july the Crimean Khan rushes with all his might to the attack of the "walk-city". More and more detachments are going on the assault, but it is not possible to punch a gap in the defensive formations of the Russian regiments. “And on that day I fought a lot, from the wallpaper the bottom of the wall, and the water mixed with blood. And in the evening the regiments were dispersed to the train, and the Tartars to their camps " … Devlet-Girei suffers huge losses, in one of the attacks Teberdey-Murza dies, under whose command the vanguard of the Crimean army was.
August 1 The assault on the Russian regiments and the "gulyai-gorod" was led by Divey-Murza - the second man in the army after the Crimean Khan, but his attacks did not work either. Moreover, Divey-Murza fell under a successful sortie of the Russians and during the chase was captured by the Suzdal man Temir-Ivan Shibaev, the son of Alalykin. This is how this episode is described in the chronicle, the text of which is quoted in his book “Unknown Borodino. Battle of Molodino in 1572 "A. R. Andreev: “… An argamak (one of the eastern breeds of riding horses - EM) stumbled under him, and he did not sit still. And then they took evo from smartly dressed argamaks in armor. The Tatar overlap became weaker than before, and the Russian people cheered up and, getting out, fought and beat many Tatars in that battle " … In addition to the main commander, one of the sons of Devlet-Girey was captured that day.
All the time while the "walk-gorod" held out, Vorotynsky's troops stood without a convoy, having neither food nor water. To survive, the Russian army, languishing with hunger, was forced to slaughter their horses. If Devlet-Girey had known this, he could have changed tactics and laid siege to the "walk-city". The outcome of the battle in this case could have been different. But the Crimean Khan clearly did not intend to wait. The proximity of the capital of the Russian Kingdom, the thirst for victory and anger for the inability to break the regiments of Vorotynsky that had become stone clouded the mind of the khan.
It has come August 2 … Embittered Devlet-Girey again directed an avalanche of his attacks on the "walk-city". The khan unexpectedly ordered the cavalry to dismount and, on foot, together with the Turkish janissaries, go on the attack of the "walk-city". But the Russians still stood as an insurmountable wall. Exhausted from hunger and tormented by thirst, the Russian warriors fought to death. There was no despondency or fear among them, for they knew what they stood for, that the price of their perseverance was the existence of their power.
Prince Vorotynsky on August 2 made a risky maneuver, which finally predetermined the outcome of the battle. During the battle, a large regiment, located in the rear, secretly left the "gulyai-gorod" and went through the hollow to the rear to the main units of the Crimeans. There he stood in a battle formation and waited for a prearranged signal.
As envisaged by the plan, the artillery struck with a powerful salvo from the "gulyai-gorod" and the regiment of the oprichnich prince-governor Dmitry Khvorostinin and the German reitars who fought with the Russians left the defensive line and started a battle. At this time, a large regiment of Prince Vorotynsky struck the rear of the Tatar-Turkish army. A fierce slaughter ensued. The enemy considered that powerful reinforcements had come to the Russians, and wavered. The Tatar-Turkish army fled, leaving the mountains of the fallen on the battlefield. On that day, in addition to the Tatar warriors and Nogais, almost all 7 thousand Turkish janissaries were killed. It is also said that in that battle the second son of Devlet-Girey fell, as well as his grandson and son-in-law. Vorotynsky's regiments captured cannons, banners, tents, everything that was in the carts of the Tatar army and even the personal weapons of the Crimean Khan. Devlet-Girey fled, the scattered remnants of his troops were driven by the Russians to the Oka and beyond.
The chronicle of that time says that “On August 2, in the evening, the Crimean tsar left the Crimean tsar for withdrawing three thousand playful people in the swamp of the Crimean totars, and the tsar himself ran that night and climbed the Oka River the same night. And in the morning the governors learned that the Crimean king ran and all the people came to the rest of the Totar and those Totar punched to the Oka River. Yes, on the Oka River, the Crimean tsar left two thousand people to protect them. And those totar were beaten by a man with a thousand, and some of the totar overtook, and others went beyond the Oka .
During the pursuit of the Crimean footmen to the crossing over the Oka, most of the fugitives were killed, in addition, the 2-thousandth Crimean rearguard, whose task was to cover the crossing of the remnants of the Tatar army, was destroyed. No more than 15 thousand soldiers returned to Crimea. A "Turks, - as Andrei Kurbsky wrote after the Battle of Molodino, - all disappeared and did not return, verbolyut, not a single one to Constantinople ".
The outcome of the battle
It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the victory at the Youth. After the devastating raid of Devlet-Giray in 1571 and the burning of Moscow, after the devastation inflicted by that invasion, the Russian Kingdom could hardly stand on its feet. And nevertheless, in the conditions of the unceasing war in the West, Moscow managed to defend its independence and for a long time eliminated the threat posed by the Crimean Khanate. The Ottoman Empire was forced to abandon plans to return the middle and lower Volga region to the sphere of its interests, and these regions were assigned to Moscow. The territories of the Astrakhan and Kazan Khanates have now finally and forever become part of Russia. Moscow has strengthened its influence in the South and East of its borders. Border fortifications on the Don and Desna were retracted 300 kilometers to the South. Conditions have been created for the peaceful development of the country. The beginning of the development of arable lands in the chernozem zone, which had previously belonged to the nomads of the Wild Field, was laid.
If Devlet-Giray was successful in his campaign against Moscow, Russia would most likely become part of the Crimean Khanate, which was under the political dependence of the Ottoman Empire. The development of our history could go in a completely different direction and who knows what country we would live in now.
But these plans were dashed by the stamina and heroism of the soldiers who stood up to defend the Russian state in that memorable battle.
The names of the heroes of the battle at Molody - princes Shuisky, Khovansky and Odoevsky, Khvorostinin and Sheremetev - in the history of the country should stand next to the names of Minin and Pozharsky, Dmitry Donskoy and Alexander Nevsky. A tribute should also be paid to the memory of the German recruits of Heinrich Staden, who commanded the artillery of the "walk-gorod". And, of course, the military leadership talent and great courage of Prince Mikhail Ivanovich Vorotynsky, without which this great victory could not have been, are worthy of perpetuation.
