We all learned a little
Something and somehow
So education, thank God, It's no wonder we shine.
(A. S. Pushkin, Eugene Onegin)
A popular textbook in modern schools by Agibalov and Donskoy. It stretched like snot, gradually acquiring new trends, but never lost its wretched essence.
But let's remember what textbooks on the same history we used to study in Soviet times, when we had the best education. We remember, and it turns out that the overwhelming majority of us studied according to the school textbook "History of the Middle Ages" for the 5th grade, where literally the following could be read about the same knights for many years with some renditions:
“It was not easy for the peasants to defeat even one feudal lord. The equestrian warrior - a knight - was armed with a heavy sword and a long spear. He could cover himself with a large shield from head to toe. The knight's body was protected by chain mail - a shirt woven from iron rings. Later, the chain mail was replaced by armor - armor made of iron plates.
Knights fought on strong, hardy horses, which were also protected by armor. The knight's armament was very heavy: it weighed up to 50 kilograms. Therefore, the warrior was clumsy and clumsy. If a rider was thrown from a horse, he could not get up without help and usually was captured. To fight on a horse in heavy armor, a long training was needed, the feudal lords were preparing for military service from childhood. They constantly practiced fencing, horseback riding, wrestling, swimming, javelin throwing.
The war horse and knightly weapons were very expensive: for all this it was necessary to give a whole herd - 45 cows! The landowner, for whom the peasants worked, could carry out knightly service. Therefore, military affairs became the occupation of almost exclusively feudal lords."
(Agibalova, E. V. History of the Middle Ages: Textbook for the 6th grade / E. V. Agibalova, G. M. Donskoy, M.: Education, 1969. P.33; Golin, E. M. History of the Middle Ages: Textbook for the 6th grade of the evening (shift) school / E. M. Golin, V. L. Kuzmenko, M. Ya. Loiberg. M.: Education, 1965. S. 31-32.)
Now look carefully and at least remember those articles "about knights" that were published on "VO". And it turns out that in all this there is NOT A SINGLE WORD OF TRUTH. That is, there is truth, but mixed in such a way that from this it turned into something exactly the opposite. Let's start with the fact that there were different eras - the era of chain mail and plate armor. And in the era of chain mail, horses did not have armor yet! And not a single knight carried 50 kg of iron on him - this is the WEIGHT OF THE ARMOR OF A MAN AND A HORSE, that is, the total weight of a knight's headset! Finally, when the armor appeared, the shields of the knights disappeared. A knight in armor could run, jump, and, becoming a knight, he had to jump into the saddle without stirrups. This was known to everyone in Soviet times, but … since decaying imperialism was present in the West, then the Western knights were "bad", clumsy and shackled, they themselves could not get up after the fall and "usually fell into captivity." It is not for nothing that V. Gorelik's publications "about knights" in the magazine "Around the World" in 1975 gave the impression of an exploding bomb - everything was not there as in the correct school textbooks. But what about the school - in the university it was all the same! In general, the "solid four", including for such a dear!
Time passed, and now we have before us school textbooks of our time. In the third edition of the textbook "History of the Middle Ages" for the 5th grade of secondary school V. A. Vedyushkin, published in 2002, the description of the knight's weapons became somewhat more thoughtful: “At first the knight was protected by a shield, helmet and chain mail. Then the most vulnerable parts of the body began to be hidden behind metal plates, and from the 15th century, chain mail was finally replaced by solid armor. The battle armor weighed up to 30 kg, so for the battle the knights chose hardy horses, also protected by armor.
The main offensive weapons of the knight were a sword and a long (up to 3.5 m) heavy spear. The use of knightly weapons was made possible by stirrups, which were adopted in Western Europe from the East in the early Middle Ages. When a knight, protected from head to toe by armor, on a war horse with a spear at the ready rushed into the attack, it seemed that there was no strength capable of withstanding his blow (Vedyushkin, E. A. A. Vedyushkin. Edited by A. O. Chubaryan. 3rd ed. M.: Education, 2002. P.117-118)
The textbook by E. A. Vedyushkin and V. I. An injection is at least something …
Quite indicative in this case is the mention of stirrups, but, nevertheless, and this is already a kind of limit not only for the level, but even for Russian higher education.
However, the extreme mythologization of historical knowledge in Russia in the Soviet period of its history was a phenomenon of such a scale that its consequences are still being overcome today extremely slowly and far from painlessly. After all, then the translation of foreign literature was carried out in direct proportion to the foreign policy interests of the country's leadership, and besides, it was also limited by the existing censorship, both external, coming on behalf of the state, and internal censorship of the researchers themselves.
The need to adjust the results of the research of foreign experts to the rigid framework of the Soviet party ideology made it extremely difficult to work even with the foreign literature we have, provoking dogmatism and dogmatism. After all, everything that went beyond the "Marxist-Leninist views" on history was considered ideologically alien and was subject to the most merciless criticism. Since 1917, a purely political approach to everything that came to us "from there" has triumphed. Because of what it was believed that if in Western Europe there is now "decaying" and "dying" capitalism, it means that there and in the past nothing good could have been, but if some positive moments were seen there, then only with the point of view from which it was they contributed to the approach of the "proletarian revolution" on the scale of the entire planet.
This is how a very simple and accessible to the most mediocre mind scheme was built, in accordance with which all knights-feudal lords without exception were recorded as villains, the rebellious peasants were declared benefactors of society, and the appearance of hired workers was good only because "the Great October was approaching." Naturally, under these conditions, the military affairs of medieval Europe were declared rather mediocre, and the warriors-knights seemed so heavily and absurdly armed that without outside help they could not even get on their feet or sit in the saddle! In all this, however, there was a deep meaning, expressed in the ideological processing of the consciousness of the population of Russia. And here it is enough to recall, for example, the feature film "Alexander Nevsky", which was released in 1938 and had an overwhelming success, comparable only to the movie "Chapaev", but removed from the box office after the signing of the "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact" ". In 1941 the film was released again, and there it was very clearly presented how our Russian men with simple shafts punch through the "knight-dogs", which was an absolutely obvious element of psychological propaganda, possibly necessary during the war years, but clearly distorting the truth of the story …As a result, even in 1999, the Military Knowledge magazine published a jubilee article with the following content: “Alexander Nevsky decided to withdraw his regiments to Lake Peipsi and meet the enemy here. He knew well the tactics of the actions of the conquerors. At the head of their "pigs" and on the flanks, mounted knights always attacked, clad in heavy armor (in armor, aha, in 1242! - author's note), and in the center was the infantry. This was taken into account by the Russian prince.
The knight dogs, having made their way through the center of our battle formations, where a small Vladimir militia was operating (in which chronicle text is this written? - author's note), mainly archers and slingers, decided that they had won the battle. But their strength was already exhausted in the long hand-to-hand battle. This was what the Russian commander hoped for. He brought the Novgorodians into battle, who created the conditions for the entry into the battle of the equestrian squad of Alexander Nevsky, which consisted of well-trained soldiers. She suddenly struck the enemy flanks.
Novgorodians skillfully operated with axes, spears, clubs. With the help of hooks, they pulled the knights from their horses, which, dismounted in heavy shells, became clumsy and could not resist our dexterous vigilantes.
Under the weight of horses and riders, the blood-drenched ice on the lake broke and collapsed. Many conquerors fled to the bottom of the lake forever, the rest fled. In the evening, the battle ended with the complete defeat of the enemy (Whoever comes to us with a sword will die by the sword // Military knowledge. 1999. No. 4. P.9.)
There were similar articles on VO, alas. As a result, I had to cite here an editorial from the Pravda newspaper for April 5, 1942, where NOT A WORD was said about the drowning of the knights in the lake and it is clear why. After all, Stalin himself ruled the editorials of Pravda and he could not allow professional historians to laugh at him and his Pravda. But in all the other newspapers … oh, they wrote what would come to mind, and in the end this was again reflected in "wonderful school textbooks." True, today the most odious of them, well, the one about which I have already written here and in which the infantry of the bollards walked inside the "pig" being dressed (read and laugh!) In shells and with axes, was withdrawn from schools. There were also other bloopers, this one is the most noticeable. Although a small lie, it was still possible to exterminate it from school practice!
So, when some of our commentators propose in their polemical fervor to return to Soviet textbooks, they should think with their heads!
The textbook by S. A. Nefedova.
P. S. By the way, a very interesting textbook on the history of the Middle Ages ("history presented as a novel") S. A. Nefedova was published back in 1996 by the Vlados publishing house. In my opinion, today there is no better manual than this textbook. But it was published on bad paper (after all, what year ?!), with poor design, and did not receive distribution either at that time or afterwards. And in vain … And the author made a series. Ancient world, Middle Ages, Renaissance. But that's all.
