In the spring of 1399, small Kiev, exhausted by the Horde raids, in just a few weeks turned into a huge, thousands-strong and multilingual camp. Inspired by the victory of the Russians at the Kulikovo field, military squads from all over eastern and central Europe converged here.
Iron armor gleamed in the sun, the neighing of huge herds of horses, quenching their thirst off the coast of Slavutych, was heard; warriors sharpened their swords.
Even the crusaders came, and the people of Kiev looked with amazement at the outlandish armor of the knights, who had never before gone so far into the Slavic lands.
A few months later, a terrible tragedy occurred …
…. Only one small detachment of mounted warriors eluded death after a terrible battle. They fled, and "the Tartars were chasing after them, cutting them for five hundred miles, shedding blood, like water, to the hail to Kiev."
This is how the Nikon Chronicle mentions a fierce battle that took place on the banks of the quiet Ukrainian river Vorskla more than 600 years ago, on August 12, 1399. The details of the battle are covered with darkness for centuries, almost all the ancient Russian soldiers fell on the battlefield. This battle is not mentioned in school textbooks, and the exact place where it took place is unknown.
The number of its participants can only be guessed at. The great Lithuanian prince Vitovt, who led the common squads of the Slavs, Lithuanians and crusaders, the same one who commanded the united army in the famous Battle of Grunwald, led a force, "great zelo"; there were fifty princes with him.
But in the famous Battle of Kulikovo (1380), only 12 appanage princes with fighting squads took part! The famous Polish historian P. Borawski claims that the battle on Vorskla was the largest in the 14th century! Why is so little known about this grandiose event?
Firstly, there were practically no eyewitnesses, since everyone died in this fierce battle (as the Ipatiev Chronicle states). And secondly, it was a terrible, bloody defeat! They did not like to write about such people … Bit by bit from the Russian chronicles and the works of Polish historians, let's try to figure it out - what did happen in the hot summer of 1399?..
Six hundred years ago Kiev was a small city that was part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. A few residents were engaged in the usual craft and trade in the once mighty capital of Russia, which was just beginning to recover after the Tatar-Mongol raids. Life glimmered mainly in Podil and in the area of the Pechersk Lavra. But in the spring of 1399, as we already know, the city was transformed.
It heard the speech of the Slavs and Germans, Lithuanians, Poles, Hungarians … Troops from many European states and principalities gathered here. A huge army, consisting mainly of regiments of the Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian lands, set out on May 18 from Kiev.
It was headed by princes Andrey Olgerdovich Polotsky, Dmitry Olgerdovich Bryansky, Ivan Borisovich Kievsky, Gleb Svyatoslavovich Smolensky, Dmitry Danilovich Ostrozhsky and many other princes and governors. The commander-in-chief was the Grand Duke of Lithuania Vitovt.
Next to him (bizarre twists of history!) Was the same Khan Tokhtamysh, who united the Horde for a while, managed to burn Moscow, but was soon thrown from the khan's throne by the formidable Edigey. With the help of Vitovt, Tokhtamysh intended to regain the khan's throne and also led a squad with him.
On the side of Vitovt, about a hundred heavily armed crusader knights who came from Poland and the German lands took part in the campaign. With each crusader came several squires, armed no worse than the knights. But the majority of the soldiers were Slavs, who gathered from almost all parts of Russia. In general, the Slavic lands occupied 90 percent of the entire territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which was often called the Lithuanian Rus.
The Slavic squads, remembering the glorious victory at the Kulikovo field, hoped to end the Tatar-Mongol yoke once and for all. The army was even armed with artillery, which had recently appeared in Europe. The guns were quite impressive, although they fired mainly with stone cannonballs. Thus, six hundred years ago, the roar of guns was heard for the first time on the territory of Ukraine …
On August 8, the forces of the combined army met on Vorskla with the army of Timur-Kutluk, the commander of the Golden Horde Khan Edigey. The self-confident Vitovt issued an ultimatum demanding obedience. "Submit you to me too … and give me every summer tribute and rent." The Horde, having waited for the approach of the allies - the Crimean Tatars, themselves put forward a similar demand.
The battle began on 12 August. Vitovt's army crossed the Vorskla and attacked the Tatar army. At first, the success was on the side of the united army, but then the cavalry of Timur-Kutluk managed to close the encirclement, and then it began … In a dense hand-to-hand battle, the artillery turned out to be powerless. Most of the princes and boyars perished, "Vitovt himself fled in small …"
The heavily armed crusaders also fell, unable to resist the Tatar sabers. Pursuing a small detachment of Vitovt who miraculously escaped and ruining everything in its path, the Tatars quickly approached Kiev. The city withstood the siege, but was forced to pay "a payback of 3000 Lithuanian rubles and another 30 rubles okremo taken from the Pechersky Monastery." At that time, it was a huge amount.
So, it was not possible to get rid of the Tatar yoke in that century. The defeat seriously affected the statehood of Lithuanian Rus; soon weakened Vitovt had to admit his vassal dependence on Poland. After the Battle of Grunwald (in which, by the way, 13 Russian regiments from Galich, Przemysl, Lvov, Kiev, Novgorod-Seversky, Lutsk, Kremenets) took part; he even wanted to become king, but could not resist the influence of the Polish king Jagiel. Vitovt died in 1430, and the Poles moved to Russia … And if the outcome of the battle on Vorskla had been different?..
This battle ended sadly. Not a single monument, not a single obelisk on the glorious Poltava land reminds of him … Military historians associate the Battle of Vorskla with the Lithuanian-Polish campaigns, but the backbone of the army was Russian. "Fifty Slavic princes from the squad!"
Their death knocked down all subsequent generations of the descendants of the legendary Rurik. After a few decades, there were no princes of Ostrog, no Galitsky, no Kiev, no Novgorod-Seversky. Numerous descendants of St. Vladimir, Yaroslav the Wise seemed to dissolve, disappeared on our land …
Cold-blooded Swedes do not forget their soldiers killed near Poltava - and the monument stands, and flowers are brought every year. The British, having fallen under the deadly fire of Russian artillery and having suffered a bloody defeat in 1855 by a goal near Balaklava, often come to visit the graves of their ancestors who died in the distant Crimea. A magnificent white monument to English soldiers stands in the heart of the vineyard.
The workers of the wine-making state farm periodically paint it, and carefully bend around the tractors during the spring plowing. Nearby, on the highway, there is an obelisk opened in 1995. But Poltava is located at a distance of one and a half thousand kilometers from Sweden, Balaklava - even further from England. And here, very close, in the Poltava region, the remains of our compatriots lie in the ground, and there is not a single memorial sign, not a single cross where, presumably, more than a hundred thousand soldiers died!
There is something to think about and something to be ashamed of us, descendants …
