There is nothing worse when history begins to be interpreted one-sidedly, for the sake of the political conjuncture. On the one hand, the selection of its positive moments raises patriotic sentiments in people (especially those who are not too knowledgeable in the history of their country, and there are, by the way, there are many) - that's what we were! But then, when the situation changes, the "white thread seams" become very noticeable. Again, the "people", and even more so the people with the epithet "simple", that is, the ideal of politicians, may not pay attention to this. But … he will be helped in this by those who are just engaged in looking for this kind of error in order to disavow much more important events on the principle - "lies everywhere."
Rakvere Castle - modern look. At the beginning of the 13th century, the stone castle was built on the Vallimägi hill by the Danes, and the height of the hill is about 25 m. Well, around the castle, as it happened very often at that time, the city quickly grew. Today it is the territory of Estonia.
Therefore, it is very important to study history on the basis of not popular literature, but, first of all, from sources available to all. Yes, sometimes they are stingy, but a mean truth is better than a voluminous, but embellished beyond all likelihood lie. It’s easier and more honest to say “we don’t know more precisely” than to fantasize “what if”.
Rakvere Castle - modern look.
So the Battle of Rakovor or the Battle of Rakovor is one of the events in our history, which … teachers do not like to talk about. In the textbook on the history of the Fatherland for the 7th grade, there is practically no mention of him. Meanwhile, it was a major battle that took place on February 18, 1268, and the united troops of the North Russian principalities and the knights of the Livonian Order and Danish Estland, who met near the Wesenberg fortress, took part in it. Today this place in Estonia is called Rakvere, and on the memorial sign-pointer it is written that it was founded in 1226. Actually, the founders of the fortress were the Danes, who, in the best traditions of the Middle Ages, were looking for someone else's wealth in the Baltic lands. And it is obvious that they had a certain amount of wealth by the aforementioned year. Otherwise, the campaign against him would simply not have taken place.
Well, and Prince Dovmont led the Russian troops participating in it, who was forced to leave his native Grand Duchy of Lithuania as a result of the struggle for the throne after the death of Prince Mindaugas (1263), in whose murder he took a direct part. From the land, this native prince fled with his squad and relatives in the amount of about 300 people, but was well received by the inhabitants of Pskov, where he was baptized and was named Timothy. In the Novgorod Chronicle of the senior edition, one of the episodes of Dovmond's activity in Pskov is described as follows: “In summer 6774 [1266]. Posadisha plskovichi with Prince Dovmont of Lithuania. God put the same grace in Dovmont's heart to overcome his grace according to Saint Sophia and the Holy Trinity, to avenge the Christian blood, and go from Pskov to filthy Lithuania, and fought a lot, and took the princess Gerdeneva, and took 2 princes. Prince Gerden, buy up the strength of Lithuania near you, and chase after them. And it was as if the Pskovites had lost their chase, sent off / l.142 rev. / Full, and the stasha themselves were quite opposed to them on this side of Dvina. Lithuania has begun to wander over to this side; then the plskovichi took pictures with them; and God help prince Dovmont to get off the Pskovites, and beat a lot of them, and in tsѣ he wasted in tsѣ, just as he escaped one prince Gerden in a small squad; Pskovites are all healthy.
“In the same summer (6774), the Duke of Lithuania Domant came to Pskov with all his family and was baptized, and his name was named Timofey” (Inscription under the miniature from the Obverse Chronicle Code).
That is, he led the campaign of the Pskovites against "filthy Lithuania", he took away his wife from Prince Gerden and another full, and when the Lithuanian prince began to persecute the Pskovites, they "became strong" and gave battle to the Lithuanians crossing the river and many "beat", while others and in the river "istoposha", that is, their soldiers, simply put, drowned, and the battle was lost by the Lithuanians. And in any case, both the Pskovians and the Novgorodians considered it righteous, since the Lithuanians at that time were pagans, but what Christian can be put into sin by beating the filthy pagans?
European knight 1250 Drawing by Graham Turner.
Teutonic knight of the XIII century and his weapons. Drawing by Graham Turner.
So it is not at all surprising that two years later the Novgorodians decided to follow the path of the successful Pskovites, and again go against Lithuania, but they argued over who to command, which is why the troops did not go against the "filthy pagans" for some reason. But the assembled troops invaded the possessions of the Danes, which were exactly on the lands of modern Estonia, and approached the Rakvere castle. "A lot of land was devastated, but the city was not taken" - the chronicle tells us, but does not indicate how many soldiers took part in this raid. But she also reports that when seven people from the army died from arrows, and from this the Novgorodians retreated from him and asked for help from the Grand Duke of Vladimir Yaroslav Yaroslavich, but he himself did not go to war with Lithuania, but sent his sons Svyatoslav and Mikhail (the Elder), as well as Dmitry Pereyaslavsky and several other princes. In Novgorod, having received help, they began to prepare siege weapons for the siege of the city. That is, it was by no means an ordinary border raid, and the preparations were very serious. But then, between March 1 and December 31, 1267, bishops of the Livonian Order arrived in Novgorod, as well as knights from the city of Riga, as well as Viljandi and Yuryev, and they began to ask the Novgorodians for peace, and having agreed on it, they swore an oath that they would not help neither the Rokors, nor the Revels, if they had a war with the Novgorodians, that is, they dissociated themselves from their own co-religionists for the sake of peace with Veliky Novgorod. The Livonian Chronicle, however, mentions that in spite of this, both Viljandians and warriors from many other cities took part in the Battle of Rakovor (“the whole German land” is written in the Russian chronicle). But here it should be noted that the knights did not really value the oath given to heretics, and that was exactly what the Christians of the Greek faith were considered in their eyes. But be that as it may, and already on January 23, the Russian army headed to the land of Virumaa, which then belonged to the Danes, and they began to urgently gather forces to repel the enemy.
Russian soldiers of the beginning of the XIII century. It is unlikely that by 1266 there were any significant changes, although, most likely, overhead plate armor has already appeared. Rice. Angus McBride.
Norse warriors of the late 13th century Something very similar could have happened in the Baltics. Rice. Angus McBride.
So it is not surprising that the army of the Livonian Order, which since 1237 has become only the Livonian landmastership of the order, set out from Yuryev, and, joining with the Danes, who had significant forces, settled on the left flank. Svyatoslav, Dmitry and Dovmont were against the Livonians. The Danes stood on the right flank, where the soldiers of Prince Mikhail Yaroslavich (the Elder) lined up against them. There is a story in the Novgorod Chronicle, which is not in the Rhymed Chronicle, about a fierce battle that ensued in the very center of the battlefield between Novgorod soldiers and the enemy's "iron regiment" ("the great pig"), in which a Novgorod mayor named Mikhail was killed, and together with him 13 named boyars, and the thousand Kondrat and two more boyars, also named by name, disappeared altogether, and black people died “without number”. That is, the battle was extremely fierce, and both "black people" and warriors, equal in weaponry to the knights, fought in it, for it is difficult to imagine that the mayor, the thousand, as well as 15 boyars could be armed worse than the Livonian knights. The fact that Prince Yuri was forced to retreat and "showed his shoulders", for which he was even suspected by the chronicler of "translation", that is, of treason, also speaks of what a cruel onslaught the Novgorodians had to withstand.
But then a strong counterattack followed from the side of the Novgorodians. Moreover, it is the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle that names the exact number of its participants, namely: 5000 soldiers rushed to the knights led by Prince Dmitry Alexandrovich. Here a legitimate question arises: when and who counted the participants in this attack from the Livonian side? Moreover, the chronicle notes that the knights, they say, still managed to repel this blow, moreover … "with small forces." However, the Novgorod Chronicle links the overall victory of the Russian troops in this battle with this counterattack, and reports that our soldiers pursued the fleeing enemy seven miles to Rakovor itself. There are also questions about the number seven. And in the Battle of the Ice they drove the enemy for seven miles, and here too. There is also a saying: "For seven versts of jelly slurp", that is, it is obvious that a certain sacred meaning was put into this figure at that time. But there is an interesting addition in the annals that the pursuit was carried out along three roads, because there were so many killed that the horses could not step on the corpses. That is, the very fact of the defeat of the allied Livonian-Danish troops is beyond doubt, although the victory for the Russian soldiers did not come easily.
It is interesting that in the evening one more enemy detachment approached the place of the battle and attacked … the Novgorod wagon train. What, there was no one to guard him? Apparently - yes, because all the soldiers were "in business" - they got their prey and pursued the retreating. Russian troops again began to pull together to the site of the battle, but then night fell, and by morning the knights retreated. That is, the battlefield remained with the united army of the Russian princes, and it was a complete and decisive victory.
And then the victorious Russian troops approached Rakovor and stood under its walls for three days, and the knights sat in it, closing the gates, and did not dare to leave it for battle in the open field. But what prevented the Novgorodians from laying siege to the city, because the siege machines had been prepared by them in advance? Most likely, this was due to their loss during the enemy's attack on the train. But even though the city itself was not taken by the Russian troops, the Pskov squad of Prince Dovmont brought a lot of losses to the knights. Because at that time she passed all over Livonia. And although none of the fortified castles was besieged or taken, the property of the knights was destroyed, cattle were driven away, and prisoners were captured. Which knights suffered losses? It is not possible to find out this on the basis of chronicle messages. But it is known that already in 1269 the Order organized its retaliatory campaign in the Russian lands. For ten days the knights besieged Pskov, but as soon as they learned that the Novgorod army, led by Prince Yuri, was marching towards the city, they immediately withdrew from the city and, as the chronicle says, made peace "according to all the will of Novgorod." This was followed by another defeat of the knights at the Battle of Durba from the Lithuanians, which ultimately halted the German-Danish expansion in this region for 30 years.
In Russian historiography, the Pskov-Novgorod army is recognized as the undoubted winner in the Battle of Rakovor, however, with a clearly larger number of participants than in the same "Battle on the Ice", there is little about this battle in textbooks, and schoolchildren are practically not told about it …
The stingy lines of the chronicle tell about this battle as follows:
“And repelled by doing to Rakovor; and as if it was on the rѣtsѣ Kѣgolѣ, and that usrѣtosh standing regiment of nѣmetskiyi; and bѣ seeѣti yakoi lѣs: bѣ bo all the land of Nѣmets was bought. Novgorodians, however, did not hesitate at all, went to them behind the river, and began to set up regiments: the Pskovites are stasha on the right, and Dmitriy and Svyatoslav Stasha are rightfully higher, and at the left of a hundred Mikhailo, the Novgorodians are stash in the face of the iron regiment against the great pigs. And tako poidosha against sobѣ; and, as if I was defeated, there was a terrible massacre, as if neither father nor father had seen. And that evil is great: killing the mayor Mikhail, and Tverdislav Chermny, Nikifor Radyatinich, Tverdislav Moisievich, Mikhail Krivtsevich, Ivach, / l. 145./ Boris Ildyatinich, his brother Lazor, Ratshyu, Vasil Voiborzovich, Djilvoiskogo, Zhilomov, Polyuda, and there are many good boyars, and there were many black people; and others could not be without a trace: the thousand's Kondrat, Ratislav Boldyzhevich, Danil Mozotinich, and there are many others, God is true, and Pskovich is also Ladojan; and Yurya the prince is in the shoulders, or if he was translated into him, then God is. But then, brothers, for our sin, God will execute us and take good men away from us, 3 so they will repent, as if to say the scripture: wondrous is the weapon of prayer and fasting; and packs 4: alms combined with fasting, delivers a man from death; …
Sword of Prince Dovmont from the Pskov Museum.
The knights did not calm down even later, and attacked Pskov both in 1271 and in 1272, but were defeated by Prince Dovmont. In 1299, they again unexpectedly invaded the Pskov Republic, subjected its lands to devastation, and laid siege to the city itself, but … were again defeated by Prince Dovmont, who soon after fell ill and died. It is interesting that the church canonized Prince Dovmont as early as 1374.
Icon of the Mother of God from the Transfiguration Cathedral of the Mirozh Monastery in Pskov (1583?). The Mother of God is depicted on it together with the forthcoming holy princes Dovmont of Pskov and his wife Maria Dmitrievna, drawn after her appearance. Pskov Museum.
