Great Molodinskaya battle. Battle of Molodi: a repeat of the Kulikovo victory Battle near the village of molodi

Battle of Molodi or Molodinskaya battle- a major battle that took place between July 29 and August 2, 1572, 50 versts south of Moscow, in which Russian troops fought under the leadership of Princes Mikhail Vorotynsky and Dmitry Khvorostinin and the army of the Crimean Khan Devlet I Giray, which included, in addition to Crimean troops, Turkish and Nogai detachments. Despite a significant numerical superiority, the Crimean Turkish army was put to flight and almost completely killed.

Soon, however, luck was replaced by a series of defeats. In 1569, as a result of the Union of Lublin, the position of the Russian state became more complicated, since it had to withstand the increased strength of rivals. Taking advantage of the stay of most of the Russian troops in the Baltics, and the escalating internal situation associated with the introduction of the oprichnina, the Crimean Khan made numerous raids on the southern borders of the Russian lands, including undertaking an unsuccessful campaign against Astrakhan (1569) together with the Ottoman army.

Crimean raid on Moscow in 1571

Song about the invasion of the Crimean
Tatars to Rus' in 1572

And not a strong cloud clouded,
and not strong thunders thundered:
where is the dog of the Crimean king going?

And to the mighty kingdom of Moscow:
“And now we will go to stone Moscow,
and we’ll go back, we’ll take Rezan.”

And how will they be at the Oka River,
and here they will set up white tents.
“And you think with a whole mind:

Who we have to sit in stone Moscow,
and to whom we have in Volodimer,
and who we have to sit in Suzdal,

And to whom we keep Rezan Old,
and to whom we have in Zvenigorod,
and who will sit in Novgorod with us?

Exit Divi-Murza son Ulanovich:
“And thou art our sovereign, the Crimean king!
And taba, sir, we sit in stone Moscow,
And to your son in Volodimer,

And to your nephew in Suzdal,
and relatives in Zvenigorod,
and the stable boyar to keep Rezan the Old,

And me, sovereign, perhaps the New City:
I have light-good-days lying there, father,
Divi-Murza son Ulanovich.

The Lord's voice will call from heaven:
“Ino be, dog, Crimean king!
Do you not know the kingdom?

And there are also Seventy Apostles in Moscow
oprisheny Three saints,
there is still an Orthodox tsar in Moscow!”

You ran, dog, Crimean king,
not by the way, not by the way,
not according to the banner, not according to black!

However, Devlet Giray was sure that Rus' would no longer recover from such a blow and would itself be able to become easy prey, moreover, famine and an epidemic of plague reigned within its borders. In his opinion, it only remained to deal the final blow. All year after the march on Moscow, he was busy compiling a new, much larger army. Active support was provided by the Ottoman Empire, which provided him with several thousand soldiers, including 7 thousand selected Janissaries. From the Crimean Tatars and Nogais, he managed to gather about 80 thousand people. Owning a huge army at that time, Devlet Giray moved to Moscow. The Crimean Khan repeatedly stated that " goes to Moscow to the kingdom". The lands of Muscovite Rus were already divided in advance between the Crimean Murzas. The invasion of the Crimean army, like the aggressive campaigns of Batu, raised the acute question of the existence of an independent Russian state.

On the eve of the battle

After that, what Vorotynsky had hoped for happened. Having learned about the defeat of the rearguard and fearing for his rear, Devlet Giray deployed his army. By this time, a walk-city had already been deployed near Molodi in a convenient place located on a hill and covered by the river Rozhaya. Khvorostinin's detachment turned out to be one on one with the entire Crimean army, but, having correctly assessed the situation, the young governor did not lose his head and, with an imaginary retreat, lured the enemy to the walk-city.

In the same Record of the Digit Book about the "coastal service" and the reflection of the invasion of the Crimean Tatars in 1572, it is written:

“And the Crimean king sent twelve thousand Nagai and Crimean Totars. And the princes from the Totars of the advanced sovereign regiment rushed to the big regiment to walking the city, and as they ran through the city to the right, and at that time the boyar Prince Mikhail Ivanovich Vorotynsky and his comrades ordered to shoot at the Tatar regiment from all along. And in that battle, many Totars were beaten.

Aftermath of the battle

After an unsuccessful campaign against the Russian kingdom, Crimea temporarily lost a significant part of the combat-ready male population, since according to customs, almost all combat-ready men were obliged to participate in the campaigns of the khan. Attacks on Rus' ceased for almost 20 years (until the Crimean campaign against Moscow in 1591). The Ottoman Empire was forced to abandon plans to return the middle and lower Volga regions to the sphere of its interests, and they were assigned to Moscow.

Devastated by the previous Crimean raids of 1566-1571. and natural disasters of the late 1560s. , fighting on two fronts, the Russian state was able to withstand and maintain its independence in an extremely critical situation.

Serious research on the topic of the Battle of Molodi began to be undertaken only at the end of the 20th century.

see also

Notes

1. Storozhenko A. V. Stefan Batory and Dnieper Cossacks. Kyiv, 1904. S. 34
2. Penskoy V. V. Battle at Molodyakh, July 28-August 3, 1572 // History of military affairs: research and sources. - St. Petersburg. , 2012. - Vol. 2. - S. 156. - ISSN 2308-4286.

IN Russian history There are moments that, without any exaggeration, can be called fateful. When the question of the very existence of our country and its people was being decided, the further vector of the development of the state was determined for decades, and even for centuries. As a rule, they are associated with repulsing foreign invasions, with the most important battles that every schoolchild knows today - the Battle of Kulikovo, Borodino, the defense of Moscow, the Battle of Stalingrad.

One of such events in the history of our country, without a doubt, is the Battle of Molodi, in which on August 2, 1572, Russian troops and the combined Tatar-Turkish army met. Despite a significant numerical superiority, the army under the command of Devlet Giray was utterly defeated and dispersed. Many historians consider the Battle of Molodi to be a turning point in the confrontation between Moscow and the Crimean Khanate...

A paradox: despite its enormous importance, today the Battle of Molodi is practically unknown to the Russian layman. Of course, historians and local historians are well aware of the Battle of Molodinsky, but you will not find the date of its beginning in school textbooks, there is not even a mention of it in the institute program. This battle is deprived of the attention of publicists, writers and filmmakers. And in this regard, the battle of Molodi is indeed a forgotten battle in our history.

Today Molodi is a small village in the Chekhov district of the Moscow region with a population of several hundred people. Since 2009, a festival of reenactors has been held here, timed to coincide with the anniversary of the memorable battle, and in 2019 the regional Duma awarded Molodyi with the honorary title of “Settlement of military prowess”.

Before proceeding to the story of the battle itself, I would like to say a few words about its prerequisites and the geopolitical situation in which the Muscovite state was in the middle of the 16th century, because without this our story would be incomplete.

XVI century - the birth of the Russian Empire

The 16th century is the most important period in the history of our country. During the reign of Ivan III, the creation of a single Russian state was completed, the principality of Tver, Veliky Novgorod, Vyatka land, part of the principality of Ryazan and other territories were annexed to it. The Muscovite state finally went beyond the borders of the lands of North-Western Rus'. The Great Horde was finally defeated, and Moscow declared itself its successor, thus declaring its Eurasian claims for the first time.

The heirs of Ivan III continued his policy of further strengthening the central government and collecting the surrounding lands. Particular success in the latter issue was achieved by Ivan IV, whom we know better as Ivan the Terrible. The period of his reign is a turbulent and controversial time, about which historians continue to argue even after more than four centuries. Moreover, the figure of Ivan the Terrible itself causes the most polar assessments ... However, this has no direct relation to the topic of our story.

Ivan the Terrible carried out a successful military reform, thanks to which he managed to create a large combat-ready army. In many ways, this allowed him to significantly expand the boundaries of the Moscow state. Astrakhan and Kazan Khanate, lands of the Don army, Nogai Horde, Bashkiria, Western Siberia. By the end of the reign of Ivan IV, the territory of the Muscovite state doubled and became larger than the rest of Europe.

Having believed in his own strength, Ivan IV began the Livonian War, a victory in which would guarantee Muscovy free access to the Baltic Sea. This was the first Russian attempt to "cut a window to Europe". Alas, not successful. The fighting went on with varying success and dragged on for as many as 25 years. They exhausted the Russian state and led to its decline, which another force did not fail to take advantage of - the Ottoman Empire and its vassal Crimean Khanate - the westernmost fragment of the disintegrated Golden Horde.

Crimean Tatars have been one of the main threats to Russian lands for centuries. As a result of their regular raids, entire regions were devastated, tens of thousands of people fell into slavery. By the time of the events described, the regular robbery of Russian lands and the slave trade had become the basis of the economy of the Crimean Khanate.

By the middle of the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire had reached the peak of its power, stretching across three continents, from Persia to Algeria and from the Red Sea to the Balkans. It was rightfully considered the largest military power of that time. The Astrakhan and Kazan khanates entered the orbit of the interests of the Brilliant Porte, and their loss did not suit Istanbul at all. Moreover, the conquest of these lands opened up new ways for the Muscovite state to expand - to the south and east. Many Caucasian rulers and princes began to seek the patronage of the Russian tsar, which the Turks liked even less. Further strengthening of Moscow could pose a direct threat to the Crimean Khanate. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Ottoman Empire decided to take advantage of the weakening of Muscovy and take away from Tsar Ivan the lands he had conquered in the Kazan and Astrakhan campaigns. The Turks wanted to get back the Volga region and restore the "Turkic" ring in the southeast of Russia.

At this time, the largest and best part of the Russian military forces was on the "western front", so Moscow immediately found itself at a disadvantage. Roughly speaking, Russia received a classic war on two fronts. After the signing of the Union of Lublin, the Poles also joined the ranks of its opponents, which made the position of the Russian tsar practically hopeless. The situation within the Muscovite state itself was also very difficult. Oprichnina devastated Russian lands sometimes cleaner than any steppe dwellers, to this we can add a plague epidemic and several years of crop failures that caused famine.

In 1569, Turkish troops, together with the Tatars and Nogais, already tried to take Astrakhan, but they did not succeed in this and were forced to retreat with heavy losses. Historians call this campaign the first of a whole series of Russian-Turkish wars that will last until the beginning of the 19th century.

Campaign of the Crimean Khan in 1571 and the burning of Moscow

In the spring of 1571, the Crimean Khan Devlet Giray gathered a powerful army of 40 thousand fighters and, with the support of Istanbul, went on a raid on Russian lands. The Tatars, practically without resistance, reached Moscow and completely burned it - only the stone Kremlin and Kitay-gorod remained intact. How many people died in this case is unknown, the figures are from 70 to 120 thousand people. In addition to Moscow, the steppes plundered and burned another 36 cities, here the number of losses also went to tens of thousands. Another 60 thousand people were taken into slavery ... Ivan the Terrible, having learned about the approach of the Tatars to Moscow, fled the city.

The situation was so dire that Tsar Ivan himself asked for peace, promising to return Astrakhan. Devlet Giray demanded that Kazan be returned, as well as to pay him a huge ransom for those times. Later, the Tatars completely abandoned negotiations, deciding to finish off the Muscovite state completely, and take all its lands for themselves.

Another raid was planned for 1572, which, according to the Tatars, was supposed to finally solve the “Moscow issue”. For these purposes, a huge army for those times was assembled - about 80 thousand cavalry Krymchaks and Nogais, plus 30 thousand Turkish infantry and 7 thousand selected Turkish Janissaries. Some sources generally call the number of the Tatar-Turkish army at 140-160 thousand people, but this is probably an exaggeration. One way or another, but Devlet Giray repeatedly stated before the campaign that he was “going to Moscow for the kingdom” - he was so sure of his own victory.

Probably, for the first time since the end of the Horde yoke, the Moscow lands were again under the threat of falling under foreign rule. And she was real...

And what did the Russians have?

population Russian forces near Moscow several times inferior to the invaders. Most of the tsarist army was in the Baltic or defended the western borders of the state. Prince Vorotynsky was supposed to repel the enemy bulk, it was his tsar who appointed the commander in chief. Under his command were about 20 thousand fighters, who were later joined by a detachment of German mercenaries (about 7 thousand soldiers), Don Cossacks and a thousand Zaporizhzhya Cossacks (“Kanev Cherkasy”) under the leadership of Colonel Cherkashenin. Ivan the Terrible, as in 1571, when the enemy approached Moscow, taking the treasury, fled to Novgorod.

Mikhail Ivanovich Vorotynsky was an experienced military leader who spent almost his entire life in battles and campaigns. He was the hero of the Kazan campaign, where the regiment under his command repelled an enemy attack, and then occupied part of the city wall and held it for several days. He was a member of the Tsar's Middle Duma, but then fell out of favor - he was suspected of treason, but saved his head and got off with just a link. In a critical situation, Ivan the Terrible remembered him and entrusted him to command all available forces near Moscow. The oprichny governor Dmitry Khvorostinin, who was a decade and a half younger than Vorotynsky, helped the prince. Khvorostinin showed himself during the capture of Polotsk, for which he was marked by the king.

In order to somehow compensate for their small numbers, the defenders built a walk-city - a specific fortification structure, consisting of coupled carts with wooden shields. This type of field fortification was especially loved by the Cossacks, the walk-city made it possible to reliably protect the infantry from cavalry attacks. In winter, this fortification could be made from sleds.

Documents have been preserved that allow us to determine the size of the detachment of Prince Vorotynsky with an accuracy of one fighter. It was 20034 people. Plus a detachment of Cossacks (3-5 thousand soldiers). You can also add that the Russian troops had squeaks and artillery, and this later played a crucial role in the course of the battle.

There is nowhere to retreat - behind Moscow!

Historians argue about the size of the Tatar detachment, which directly went to Moscow. The figures are 40 and 60 thousand fighters. However, in any case, the enemy had at least a twofold superiority over the Russian soldiers.

Khvorostinin's detachment attacked the rearguard of the Tatar detachment as it approached the village of Molodi. The calculation was that the Tatars would not go to storm the city, having a rather large enemy detachment in the rear. And so it happened. Having learned about the defeat of his rearguard, Devlet Giray deployed an army and began the pursuit of Khvorostinin. In the meantime, the main detachment of Russian troops was stationed in a walk-city, located in a very convenient place - on a hill in front of which a river flowed.

Carried away by the pursuit of Khvorostinin, the Tatars fell directly under the fire of cannons and squeakers of the defenders of the walk-city, as a result of which they suffered significant losses. Among those killed was Tereberdey-Murza, one of the best commanders of the Crimean Khan.

The next day - July 31 - the Tatars launched the first massive assault on the Russian fortifications. However, he was not successful. And the attackers again suffered heavy losses. The deputy of the khan himself, Divey-Murza, was taken prisoner.

August 1 passed quietly, but the situation of the besieged quickly worsened: there were many wounded, there was not enough water and food - horses were used to move the walk-city.

The next day, the attackers launched another assault, which was particularly fierce. During this battle, all the archers who were between the walk-city and the river perished. However, this time the Tatars failed to take the fortification. In the next attack, the Tatars and Turks went on foot, hoping to overcome the walls of the walk-city in this way, but this attack was repulsed, and with heavy losses for the attackers. The attacks continued until the evening of August 2, and when the enemy weakened, Vorotynsky with a large regiment quietly left the fortification and hit the Tatars in the rear. At the same time, the remaining defenders of the walk-city also staged a sortie. The enemy could not stand the double blow and fled.

The losses of the Tatar-Turkish army were huge. Almost all the commanders of the khan were killed or captured, Devlet Giray himself managed to escape. Moscow troops pursued the enemy, especially many Krymchaks were killed or drowned while crossing the Oka. No more than 15 thousand soldiers returned to Crimea.

Aftermath of the Battle of Molodi

What were the consequences of the battle of Molodi, why do modern researchers put this battle on a par with Kulikovo and Borodino? Here are the main ones:

• The defeat of the invaders on the outskirts of the capital probably saved Moscow from repeating the devastation of 1571. Dozens and even hundreds of thousands of Russians were saved from death and captivity;
• The defeat at Molodi for almost twenty years discouraged the Krymchaks from organizing raids on the Muscovite state. The Crimean Khanate was able to organize the next campaign against Moscow only in 1591. The fact is that the majority of the male population of the Crimean peninsula took part in large raids, a significant part of which was slaughtered at Molody;
• The Russian state, weakened by the Livonian War, oprichnina, famine and epidemics, received several decades to “lick its wounds”;
• The victory at Molodi allowed Moscow to keep the Kazan and Astrakhan kingdoms in its composition, and the Ottoman Empire was forced to abandon plans to return them. In short, the Battle of Molodi put an end to the claims of the Ottomans to the Volga region. Thanks to this, in the next centuries, the Russians will continue their expansion to the south and east (“meeting the sun”) and reach the shores of the Pacific Ocean;
• After the battle, the borders of the state on the Don and Desna were moved several hundred kilometers further south;
• The victory at Molodi showed the advantages of an army built according to the European model;
• However, the main result of the victory at Molodi is, of course, the preservation of sovereignty and full international subjectivity by the Moscow state. In case of defeat, Moscow in one form or another would become part of the Crimean Khanate and for a long time entered the orbit of the Ottoman Empire. In this case, the history of the entire continent would have taken a completely different path. It would not be an exaggeration to say that in the summer of 1572, on the banks of the Oka and Rozhayka, the question of the very existence of the Russian state was being decided.

This day in history:

The Battle of Molodi (Battle of Molodyna) is a major battle that took place in 1572 near Moscow, between Russian troops led by Prince Mikhail Vorotynsky and the army of the Crimean Khan Devlet I Gerey, which included, in addition to the Crimean troops themselves, Turkish and Nogai troops. ..

Despite a two-fold numerical superiority, the 120,000-strong Crimean army was utterly defeated and put to flight. Only about 20 thousand people were saved.

In terms of its significance, the Battle of Molodi was comparable to Kulikovo and other key battles in Russian history. It preserved the independence of Russia and became a turning point in the confrontation between the Muscovite state and the Crimean Khanate, which renounced its claims to Kazan and Astrakhan and henceforth lost a significant part of its power...

Prince Vorotynsky managed to impose a protracted battle on Devlet-Giray, depriving him of the advantages of a sudden powerful blow. The troops of the Crimean Khan suffered huge losses (according to some sources, almost 100 thousand people). But the most important thing is irreplaceable losses, since the main combat-ready population of Crimea participated in the campaign.

The village of Molodi became a cemetery for a significant part of the men of the Crimean Khanate. Here the whole color of the Crimean army, its best warriors, perished. Turkish Janissaries were completely exterminated. After such a cruel blow, the Crimean khans no longer thought about raids on the Russian capital. The Crimean-Turkish aggression against the Russian state was stopped.

“In the summer of 1571, they were waiting for the raid of the Crimean Khan Devlet Giray. But the guardsmen, who were instructed to keep a barrier on the banks of the Oka, for the most part did not come to the service: it was more dangerous to fight against the Crimean Khan than to rob Novgorod. One of the captured boyar children gave the khan an unknown path to one of the fords on the Oka.

Devlet-Giray managed to bypass the barrier of Zemstvo troops and one oprichnina regiment and cross the Oka. Russian troops barely had time to return to Moscow. But Devlet-Girey did not besiege the capital, but set fire to the settlement. The fire spread over the walls. The whole city burned down, and those who took refuge in the Kremlin and in the Kitay-gorod fortress adjoining it, suffocated from smoke and “fire heat”. Negotiations began, in which Russian diplomats received a secret instruction to agree, as a last resort, to abandon Astrakhan. Devlet Giray also demanded Kazan. In order to finally break the will of Ivan IV, he prepared a raid for the next year.

Ivan IV understood the gravity of the situation. He decided to put at the head of the troops an experienced commander who was often in disgrace - Prince Mikhail Ivanovich Vorotynsky. Zemstvo and guardsmen were subordinate to his command; they were united in the service and within each regiment. This united army in the battle near the village of Molodi (50 km south of Moscow) completely defeated the army of Devlet Giray, which was almost twice as large. The Crimean threat was eliminated for many years.”

History of Russia from ancient times to 1861. M., 2000, p. 154

The battle that took place in August 1572 near the village of Molodi, which is about 50 km from Moscow, between Podolsk and Serpukhov, is sometimes called "Unknown Borodino". The battle itself and the heroes who participated in it are rarely mentioned in Russian history. Everyone knows the Battle of Kulikovo, as well as the head of the Russian army, Moscow Prince Dmitry, who received the nickname Donskoy. Then the hordes of Mamai were defeated, but the next year the Tatars again attacked Moscow and burned it. After the battle of Molodinsky, in which the 120,000-strong Crimean-Astrakhan horde was destroyed, the Tatar raids on Moscow ceased forever.

In the XVI century. Crimean Tatars regularly raided Muscovy. They set fire to cities and villages, drove the able-bodied population into captivity. At the same time, the number of captive peasants and townspeople many times exceeded military losses.

The climax was 1571, when the army of Khan Devlet-Girey burned Moscow to the ground. People hid in the Kremlin, the Tatars set it on fire too. The entire Moskva River was littered with corpses, the flow stopped ... In the next year, 1572, Devlet Giray, like a true Chingizid, was going to not only repeat the raid, he decided to revive the Golden Horde, and make Moscow its capital.

Devlet-Giray said that he was "going to Moscow to reign." As one of the heroes of the Molodinsky battle, the German oprichnik Heinrich Staden, wrote, “the cities and districts of the Russian land were all already painted and divided among the Murzas who were under the Crimean Tsar; it was determined which one should keep.

On the eve of the invasion

Russia's position was difficult. The consequences of the devastating invasion of 1571, as well as the plague, were still being felt. The summer of 1572 was dry and hot, horses and cattle died. The Russian regiments experienced serious difficulties in supplying food.

Economic difficulties were intertwined with complex domestic political events, accompanied by executions, disgrace, which began in the Volga region with uprisings of the local feudal nobility. In such a difficult situation, preparations were underway in the Russian state to repel a new invasion of Devlet Giray. On April 1, 1572, a new system of border service began to operate, while taking into account the experience of last year's struggle with Devlet Giray.

Thanks to intelligence, the Russian command was promptly informed about the movement of the 120,000-strong army of Devlet Giray and its further actions. The construction and improvement of military fortifications, primarily located along a large stretch along the Oka, proceeded rapidly.

Having received news of the impending invasion, Ivan the Terrible fled to Novgorod and wrote a letter from there to Devlet Giray offering peace in exchange for Kazan and Astrakhan. But it did not satisfy the khan.

Battle of Molodi

In the spring of 1571, the Crimean Khan Divlet Giray, at the head of a 120,000-strong horde, attacked Rus'. The traitor Prince Mstislavsky sent his people to show the khan how to get around the 600-kilometer Zasechnaya line from the west.

The Tatars came from where they were not expected, burned the whole of Moscow to the ground - several hundred thousand people died.

In addition to Moscow, the Crimean Khan ruined the central regions, cut out 36 cities, collected 100,000 people and went to the Crimea; from the road, he sent a knife to the tsar, "so that Ivan would slaughter himself."

The Crimean invasion was similar to the Batu pogrom; the khan believed that Russia was exhausted and could no longer resist; Kazan and Astrakhan Tatars revolted; in 1572, the horde went to Rus' to establish a new yoke - the khan's murzas divided cities and uluses among themselves.

Rus' was really exhausted by a 20-year war, famine, plague and a terrible Tatar invasion; Ivan the Terrible managed to assemble only a 20,000-strong army.

On July 28, a huge horde crossed the Oka and, having thrown back the Russian regiments, rushed to Moscow - however, the Russian army followed, attacking the Tatar rearguards. The Khan was forced to turn back, the masses of the Tatars rushed to the Russian advanced regiment, which fled, luring the enemies to the fortifications where archers and cannons were located - it was a "walk-city", a mobile fortress made of wooden shields. Volleys of Russian cannons, firing at close range, stopped the Tatar cavalry, it retreated, leaving piles of corpses on the field - but the khan again drove his soldiers forward.

For almost a week, with breaks to remove the corpses, the Tatars stormed the "walk-city" near the village of Molodi, not far from the modern city of Podolsk, dismounted horsemen stepped up under the wooden walls, rocked them - "and then many Tatars were beaten and countless hands were cut off."

On August 2, when the onslaught of the Tatars weakened, the Russian regiments left the "walk-city" and hit the exhausted enemy, the horde turned into a stampede, the Tatars were pursued and cut down to the banks of the Oka - the Crimeans had never suffered such a bloody defeat.

The Battle of Molodi was a great victory for the autocracy: only absolute power could gather all forces into one fist and repel a terrible enemy - and it is easy to imagine what would have happened if Russia had been ruled not by a tsar, but by princes and boyars - the times of Batu would have been repeated.

Having suffered a terrible defeat, the Crimeans did not dare to show themselves on the Oka for 20 years; the uprisings of the Kazan and Astrakhan Tatars were suppressed - Russia won the Great War for the Volga region. On the Don and Desna, the border fortifications were moved 300 kilometers south, at the end of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, Yelets and Voronezh were laid - the development of the richest black earth lands of the Wild Field began.

The victory over the Tatars was achieved to a large extent thanks to squeakers and cannons - weapons that were brought from the West through the "window to Europe" cut through by the tsar (?). This window was the port of Narva, and King Sigismund asked the English Queen Elizabeth to stop the arms trade, because "the Moscow sovereign daily increases his power by acquiring items that are brought to Narva." (?)

V.M. Belotserkovets

Border governor

The Oka River then served as the main stronghold, the harsh Russian borderline (borderline) against the invasions of the Crimeans. Every year, up to 65,000 soldiers came to its shores, who carried out guard duty from early spring to late autumn. According to contemporaries, the river “was fortified for more than 50 miles along the coast: two palisades four feet high were packed one against the other, one from the other at a distance of two feet, and this distance between them was filled with earth dug out behind the rear palisade ... Archers, thus, could take cover behind both palisades and shoot at the Tatars when they crossed the river.”

The choice of the commander-in-chief was difficult: there were few people suitable for this responsible position. In the end, the choice fell on the zemstvo governor, Prince Mikhail Ivanovich Vorotynsky - outstanding military leader, "a strong and courageous husband, and very skillful in regimental arrangements."

Boyar Mikhail Ivanovich Vorotynsky (c. 1510-1573), like his father, devoted himself to military service from a young age. In 1536, 25-year-old Prince Mikhail distinguished himself in the winter campaign of Ivan the Terrible against the Swedes, and after a while - in the Kazan campaigns. During the siege of Kazan in 1552, Vorotynsky at a critical moment managed to repel the attack of the city's defenders, lead the archers and capture the Arskaya tower, and then, at the head of a large regiment, storm the Kremlin. For which he received the honorary title of the sovereign's servant and governor.

In 1550-1560. M.I. Vorotynsky led the construction of defensive structures on the southern borders of the country. Thanks to his efforts, the approaches to Kolomna, Kaluga, Serpukhov and other cities were strengthened. He established a guard service, repelled the attacks of the Tatars.

Selfless and devoted friendship to the sovereign did not save the prince from suspicions of treason. In 1562-1566. humiliation, disgrace, exile, prison fell to his lot. In those years, Vorotynsky received an offer from the Polish king Sigismund-August to go to the service in the Commonwealth. But the prince remained faithful to the sovereign and Russia.

In January-February 1571, service people, boyar children, stanitsa, stanitsa heads gathered in Moscow from all border towns. By order of Ivan the Terrible, M.I. Vorotynsky, having asked those summoned to the capital, had to describe from which cities, in what direction and at what distance to send patrols, in what places to stand guards (indicating the territory served by the patrols of each of them), in what places to be border heads “to protect against the arrival of military people”, etc.

The result of this work was the “Instruction on the Stanitsa and Guard Service” left by Vorotynsky. In accordance with it, the border service should do everything possible “to make the outskirts more careful”, so that military people “do not come to the outskirts without a trace”, accustom the guards to constant vigilance.

Another order was issued by M.I. Vorotynsky (February 27, 1571) - on the establishment of parking places for sentinel stanitsa heads and on giving them detachments. They can be considered a prototype of domestic military regulations.

Knowing about the upcoming raid of Devlet Giray, what could the Russian commander oppose to the Tatars? Tsar Ivan, referring to the war in Livonia, did not provide him with a sufficient number of troops, giving Vorotynsky only an oprichnina regiment; at the prince's disposal were regiments of boyar children, Cossacks, Livonian and German mercenaries. In total, the number of Russian troops was approximately 60 thousand people.

12 tumens marched against him, that is, twice the army of Tatars and Turkish Janissaries, who also carried artillery.

The question arose, what tactics should be chosen in order to not only stop, but also defeat the enemy with such small forces? Vorotynsky's military talent manifested itself not only in the creation of frontier defenses, but also in the development and implementation of the battle plan. In the latter, another hero of the battle played a crucial role? Prince Dmitry Khvorostinin.

So, the snow had not yet melted from the banks of the Oka, as Vorotynsky began to prepare for a meeting with the enemy. Border posts, notches were made, Cossack patrols and patrols were constantly running, tracking down the "sakma" (Tatar trace), forest ambushes were created. Local residents were involved in the defense. But the plan itself was not yet ready. Only common features: to draw the enemy into a viscous defensive war, deprive him of maneuverability, confuse him for a while, exhaust his forces, then force him to enter the "walk-city", where he will give the final battle.

Gulyai-gorod is a mobile fortress, a mobile fortified point built from individual wooden walls, which were placed on carts, with loopholes for firing cannons and rifles. It was erected near the river Rozhay and was of decisive importance in the battle. “If the Russians didn’t have a walk-city, then the Crimean Khan would have beaten us,” Staden recalls, “would have captured and taken everyone bound to the Crimea, and the Russian land would have been his land.”

The most important thing in terms of the upcoming battle is to force Devlet-Girey to go along the Serpukhov road. And any leak of information threatened the failure of the entire battle, in fact, the fate of Russia was decided. Therefore, the prince kept all the details of the plan in the strictest confidence, even the nearest governors for the time being did not know what their commander was up to.

The beginning of the battle

Summer has come. At the end of July, the hordes of Devlet Giray crossed the Oka just above Serpukhov, in the area of ​​​​Senkin Ford. Russian troops occupied positions near Serpukhov, fortified by a walk-city.

Khan bypassed the main Russian fortifications and rushed to Moscow. Vorotynsky immediately withdrew from the crossings at Serpukhov and rushed after Devlet Giray. The advanced regiment under the command of Prince Dmitry Khvorostinin overtook the rearguard of the Khan's army near the village of Molodi. The small village of Molodi at that time was surrounded by forests on all sides. And only in the west, where there were gentle hills, the peasants cut down trees and plowed the land. On the elevated bank of the river Rozhay, at the confluence of Molodka, stood the wooden Church of the Resurrection.

The advanced regiment overtook the Crimean rearguard, forced it to join the battle, attacked and defeated it. But he did not stop there, but pursued the remnants of the defeated rearguard up to the main forces of the Crimean army. The blow was so strong that the two princes who led the rearguard told the Khan that it was necessary to stop the offensive.

The blow was so unexpected and strong that Devlet Giray stopped his army. He realized that behind him was the Russian army, which must be destroyed in order to ensure unimpeded progress towards Moscow. Khan turned back, Devlet-Giray took risks, getting involved in a protracted battle. Accustomed to solving everything with one swift blow, he was forced to change the traditional tactics.

Finding himself face to face with the main enemy forces, Khvorostinin evaded the battle and, with an imaginary retreat, began to lure Devlet-Girey to the walk-city, behind which there was already a large regiment of Vorotynsky. The advanced forces of the khan fell under the crushing fire of cannons and squeakers. With heavy losses, the Tatars retreated. The first part of the plan worked out by Vorotynsky was carried out brilliantly. The rapid breakthrough of the Crimeans to Moscow failed, the Khan's troops entered into a protracted battle.

Everything could be different, throw Devlet-Girey at once with all your forces on the Russian positions. But the khan did not know the true power of Vorotynsky's regiments and was going to probe them. He sent Tereberdey-Murza with two tumens to capture the Russian fortification. All of them perished under the walls of the walk-city. Small skirmishes continued for two more days. During this time, the Cossacks managed to sink the Turkish artillery. Vorotynsky was seriously alarmed: what if Devlet-Girey refuses further military operations and turns back, so that the next year everything starts all over again? But that did not happen.

Victory

On July 31, a stubborn battle took place. Crimean troops began an assault on the main Russian position, equipped between the rivers Rozhai and Lopasnya. “The deed was great and the slaughter was great,” the chronicler says about the battle. In front of the gulyai-city, the Russians scattered peculiar metal hedgehogs about which the legs of the Tatar horses broke. Therefore, the rapid onslaught, the main component of the victories of the Crimeans, did not take place. A powerful throw slowed down in front of the Russian fortifications, from where shots, grapeshot and bullets rained down. The Tatars continued to attack. Repelling numerous onslaughts, the Russians went over to counterattacks. During one of them, the Cossacks captured the chief adviser of the khan - Divey-Murza, who led the Crimean troops. The fierce battle continued until evening, and Vorotynsky had to make great efforts not to bring the ambush regiment into battle, not to find it. This regiment was waiting in the wings.

On August 1, both troops were going to the decisive battle. Devlet Giray decided to do away with the Russians with his main forces. In the Russian camp, the supplies of water and food were running out. Despite successful fighting the situation was very difficult.

The decisive battle took place the next day. Khan led his army to the walk-city. And again he could not take possession of the Russian fortifications on the move. Realizing that infantry was needed to storm the fortress, Devlet-Giray decided to dismount the riders from their horses and, together with the Janissaries, throw the Tatars on foot to attack.

Once again, an avalanche of Crimeans poured into the Russian fortifications.

Prince Khvorostinin led the defenders of the walk-city. Tormented by hunger and thirst, they fought fiercely and fearlessly. They knew what fate awaited them if they were captured. They knew what would happen to their homeland if the Crimeans succeeded in breaking through. The German mercenaries fought just as courageously side by side with the Russians. Heinrich Staden led the artillery of the walk-city.

Khan's troops came close to the Russian fortress. The enraged attackers even tried to break the wooden shields with their hands. Russian swords cut off the tenacious hands of enemies. The intensity of the battle intensified, at any moment a turning point could occur. Devlet-Girey was completely absorbed in one goal - to take possession of the walk-city. For this, he drew all his forces into the battle. Meanwhile, Prince Vorotynsky managed to imperceptibly lead his large regiment through a narrow hollow and hit the enemy in the rear. At the same time, Staden fired a volley from all the guns, and the defenders of the walk-city, led by Prince Khvorostinin, made a decisive sortie. The warriors of the Crimean Khan could not withstand the blows from both sides and fled. So the victory was won!

On the morning of August 3, Devlet Giray, who lost his son, grandson and son-in-law in the battle, began a rapid retreat. The Russians were on the heels. The last fierce battle flared up on the banks of the Oka, where the 5,000-strong rearguard of the Crimeans covering the crossing was destroyed.

Prince Vorotynsky managed to impose a protracted battle on Devlet-Giray, depriving him of the advantages of a sudden powerful blow. The troops of the Crimean Khan suffered huge losses (according to some sources, almost 100 thousand people). But the most important thing is irreplaceable losses, since the main combat-ready population of Crimea participated in the campaign. The village of Molodi became a cemetery for a significant part of the men of the Crimean Khanate. Here the whole color of the Crimean army, its best warriors, perished. Turkish Janissaries were completely exterminated. After such a cruel blow, the Crimean khans no longer thought about raids on the Russian capital. The Crimean-Turkish aggression against the Russian state was stopped.

Subscribe to us

forbidden victory

Exactly four hundred and thirty years ago, the greatest battle of Christian civilization took place, which determined the future of the Eurasian continent, if not the entire planet, for many, many centuries to come. Almost two hundred thousand people met in a bloody six-day battle, proving the right to exist for many nations at once with their courage and selflessness. More than a hundred thousand people paid with their lives for the resolution of this dispute, and only thanks to the victory of our ancestors, we now live in the world that we are used to seeing around. In this battle, not just the fate of Rus' and the countries of Europe was decided - it was about the fate of the entire European civilization.

But ask anyone educated person: What does he know about the battle that took place in 1572? And practically no one, except for professional historians, will be able to answer you a word. Why? Because this victory was won by the "wrong" ruler, the "wrong" army and the "wrong" people. Four centuries have already passed since this victory is simply forbidden.

History as it is

Before talking about the battle itself, we should probably remember how Europe looked like in the little-known 16th century. And since the volume of the journal article makes it necessary to be brief, only one thing can be said: in the 16th century, no full-fledged states existed in Europe, except for the Ottoman Empire. In any case, the dwarf formations that called themselves kingdoms and counties are meaningless even roughly compared with this huge empire.

In fact, only frenzied Western European propaganda can explain the fact that we represent the Turks as dirty stupid savages, wave after wave rolling on the valiant knightly troops and winning solely due to their numbers. Everything was exactly the opposite: well-trained, disciplined, brave Ottoman warriors, step by step, pushed back scattered, poorly armed formations, mastering more and more “wild” lands for the empire. By the end of the fifteenth century, Bulgaria belonged to them on the European continent, by the beginning of the 16th century - Greece and Serbia, by the middle of the century the border had moved to Vienna, the Turks took Hungary, Moldavia, the famous Transylvania under their hand, started a war for Malta, devastated the coasts of Spain and Italy.

First, the Turks were not "dirty". Unlike Europeans, who at that time were unfamiliar even with the basics of personal hygiene, subjects of the Ottoman Empire were required, according to the requirements of the Koran, to at least perform ritual ablutions before each prayer.

Secondly, the Turks were true Muslims - that is, people who were initially confident in their spiritual superiority, and therefore extremely religiously tolerant. In the conquered territories, they, as far as possible, tried to preserve local customs so as not to destroy the established social relations. The Ottomans were not interested in whether the new subjects were Muslims, or Christians, or Jews, whether they were listed as Arabs, Greeks, Serbs, Albanians, Italians, Iranians, or Tatars. The main thing is that they continue to work quietly and regularly pay taxes. The state system of government was built on a combination of Arab, Seljuk and Byzantine customs and traditions. The most striking example of distinguishing Islamic pragmatism and religious tolerance from European savagery is the story of 100,000 Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 and willingly accepted into citizenship by Sultan Bayezid. The Catholics received moral satisfaction by cracking down on the "murderers of Christ", and the Ottomans - significant revenues to the treasury from new, far from poor, settlers.

Thirdly, the Ottoman Empire was far ahead of its northern neighbors in the technology of production of weapons and armor. It was the Turks, and not the Europeans, who suppressed the enemy with artillery fire, it was the Ottomans who actively saturated their troops, fortresses and ships with cannon barrels. As an example of the power of Ottoman weapons, one can cite 20 bombards with a caliber of 60 to 90 centimeters and weighing up to 35 tons, at the end of the 6th century put on alert in the forts that defended the Dardanelles, and stood there until the beginning of the 20th century! And not just standing ones - at the beginning of the 19th century, in 1807, they quite successfully crushed brand new English ships"Windsor Castle" and "Active", trying to break through the strait. I repeat: the guns represented a real fighting force even three centuries after they were made. In the 16th century, they could be safely considered a real superweapon. And the mentioned bombards were made in the very years when Nicollo Macchiavelli diligently wrote out the following words in his treatise “The Sovereign”: “It is better to let the enemy blind himself than to look for him, seeing nothing because of the powder smoke”, denying any benefit from the use of cannons in military campaigns.

Fourthly, the Turks had the most advanced regular professional army for their time. Its backbone was the so-called "Janissary Corps". In the 16th century, it was almost completely formed from boys bought or captured, who were legally slaves of the Sultan. All of them received high-quality military training, received good weapons and turned into the best infantry that only existed in Europe and the Mediterranean region. The number of the corps reached 100,000 people. In addition, the empire had a completely modern feudal cavalry, which was formed from the sipahis - the owners of land plots. With similar allotments, "timars", military commanders awarded valiant and worthy soldiers in all newly annexed areas, due to which the number and combat effectiveness of the army continuously increased. And if we also recall the fact that the rulers who fell into vassal dependence on the Magnificent Porte were obliged, by order of the Sultan, to bring their armies for general campaigns, it becomes clear that the Ottoman Empire could simultaneously put on the battlefield no less than half a million well-trained soldiers - much more than there were troops in all of Europe combined.

In the light of the foregoing, it becomes clear why, at the mere mention of the Turks, medieval kings were thrown into a cold sweat, the knights grabbed their weapons and shook their heads in fear, and the babies in their cradles began to cry and call for their mother. Any more or less thinking person could confidently predict that in a hundred years the entire inhabited world would belong to the Turkish sultan, and complain that the advance of the Ottomans to the north was not held back by the courage of the defenders of the Balkans, but by the desire of the Ottomans, first of all, to master the much richer lands of Asia, to conquer the ancient countries of the Middle East. And, I must say, the Ottoman Empire achieved this by expanding its borders from the Caspian Sea, Persia and the Persian Gulf and almost to the Atlantic Ocean (modern Algeria was the western lands of the empire).

We should also mention a very important fact, for some reason unknown to many professional historians: since 1475, the Crimean Khanate was part of the Ottoman Empire, the Crimean Khan was appointed and dismissed by the Sultan's firman, brought his troops on the orders of the Magnificent Porte, or began military operations against one of the neighbors on orders from Istanbul; on the Crimean peninsula was the Sultan's governor, and in several cities there were Turkish garrisons.

In addition, the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates were considered to be under the patronage of the empire, as states of fellow believers, moreover, regularly supplying slaves for numerous war galleys and mines, as well as concubines for harems ...

Golden Age of Russia

Strange as it may seem, few people now imagine what Rus' was like in the 16th century, especially people who have thoroughly studied the course of high school history. It must be said that it contains much more fiction than real information, and therefore any modern person should know a few basic, supporting facts that allow us to understand the attitude of our ancestors.

First of all, slavery practically did not exist in Rus' in the 16th century. Every person born in Russian lands was originally free and equal with everyone else. The serfdom of that time is now called a land lease agreement with all the ensuing consequences: you cannot leave until you have paid the owner of the land for its use. And that's all ... There was no hereditary serfdom (it was introduced by the council code of 1649), and the son of a serf was a free man until he himself decided to take a plot of land for himself.

There were no European wildnesses like the right of the nobility for the first night, to punish and pardon, or simply to drive around with weapons, frightening ordinary citizens and starting quarrels, did not exist. In the judicial code of 1497, only two categories of the population are generally recognized: servants people and unserved. Otherwise, everyone is equal before the law, regardless of origin.

Service in the army was absolutely voluntary, although, of course, hereditary and lifelong. If you want - serve, if you don't want - don't serve. Unsubscribe the estate to the treasury, and - free. It should be mentioned here that the concept of infantry in the Russian army was completely absent. The warrior went on a campaign on two or three horses - including archers, who dismounted only immediately before the battle.

In general, the war was a permanent state of the then Rus': its southern and eastern borders were constantly plundered by the predatory raids of the Tatars, the western borders were disturbed by the Slavic brothers of the Principality of Lithuania, who for many centuries disputed with Moscow the right of primacy to the heritage of Kievan Rus. Depending on military successes, the western border was constantly moving in one direction or the other, and the eastern neighbors were either pacified or tried to appease with gifts after another defeat. From the south, some protection was provided by the so-called Wild Field - the southern Russian steppes, completely depopulated as a result of the continuous raids of the Crimean Tatars. To attack Rus', the subjects of the Ottoman Empire needed to make a long journey, and they, as lazy and practical people, preferred to rob either the tribes of the North Caucasus, or Lithuania and Moldavia.

Ivan IV

It was in this Rus', in 1533, that the son of Vasily III, Ivan, reigned. However, he reigned is too strong a word. At the time of accession to the throne, Ivan was only three years old, and his childhood can be called happy with a very big stretch. At the age of seven, his mother was poisoned, after which, literally in front of his eyes, they killed the man whom he considered his father, his beloved nannies were dispersed, everyone who he even liked was either destroyed or sent out of sight. In the palace, he was in the position of a watchdog: either they took him to the wards, showing the “beloved prince” to foreigners, then they kicked everyone and sundry. It got to the point that they forgot to feed the future king for whole days. Everything went to the fact that before coming of age he would simply be slaughtered in order to preserve the era of anarchy in the country, but the sovereign survived. And not just survived - but became the greatest ruler in the history of Rus'. And what is most striking is that Ivan IV did not become embittered, did not begin to avenge past humiliations. His rule turned out to be perhaps the most humane in the history of our country.

The last statement is by no means a reservation. Unfortunately, everything that is usually told about Ivan the Terrible ranges from "complete nonsense" to "outright lies." To "complete nonsense" can be attributed the "evidence" of the famous expert on Rus', the Englishman Jerome Horsey, his "Notes on Russia", which states that in the winter of 1570 the guardsmen killed 700,000 (seven hundred thousand) inhabitants in Novgorod, with a total population of this city of thirty thousand. To "outright lies" - evidence of the cruelty of the king. For example, looking at the well-known encyclopedia "Brockhaus and Efron", in an article about Andrei Kurbsky, anyone can read that, being angry with the prince, "Grozny could justify his rage only by the fact of betrayal and violation of the kiss of the cross ...". What nonsense! That is, the prince betrayed the Fatherland twice, got caught, but was not hanged on an aspen, but kissed the cross, swore by Christ-God that he would no longer be, was forgiven, betrayed again ... However, with all that, they are trying to blame the tsar not for not punishing the traitor, but for continuing to hate the degenerate who brings Polish troops to Russia and sheds the blood of Russian people.

To the deepest regret of the “Ivan-haters”, in the 16th century in Rus' there was a written language, the custom of commemorating the dead and synodniks, which were preserved along with memorial records. Alas, with all diligence, no more than 4,000 dead can be attributed to the conscience of Ivan the Terrible for all his fifty years of rule. This is probably a lot, even considering that the majority honestly earned their execution by betrayal and perjury. However, in the same years in neighboring Europe, more than 3,000 Huguenots were slaughtered in Paris in one night, and in the rest of the country more than 30,000 in just two weeks. In England, on the orders of Henry VIII, 72,000 people were hanged, guilty of being beggars. In the Netherlands, during the revolution, the number of corpses exceeded 100,000 ... No, no, Russia is far from European civilization.

By the way, according to the suspicion of many historians, the story about the ruin of Novgorod was insolently written off from the assault and ruin of Liege by the Burgundians of Charles the Bold in 1468. Moreover, the plagiarists were even too lazy to make allowances for the Russian winter, as a result of which the mythical guardsmen had to ride boats along the Volkhov, which in that year, according to the chronicles, froze to the very bottom.

However, even the most fierce haters of Ivan the Terrible do not dare to challenge the main personality traits of Ivan the Terrible, and therefore we know for sure that he was very smart, prudent, sarcastic, cold-blooded and bold. The king was amazingly well-read, had an extensive memory, loved to sing and composed music (his stichera have been preserved and are performed to this day). Ivan IV was a master of the pen, leaving a rich epistolary heritage, he loved to participate in religious disputes. The tsar himself sorted out lawsuits, worked with documents, and could not stand vile drunkenness.

Having achieved real power, the young, far-sighted and active tsar immediately began to take measures to reorganize and strengthen the state - both from within and its external borders.

Meeting

The main feature of Ivan the Terrible is his manic passion for firearms. For the first time, detachments armed with squeakers appear in the Russian army - archers, who gradually become the backbone of the army, taking away this title from the local cavalry. Cannon yards are springing up all over the country, on which more and more barrels are cast, fortresses are being rebuilt for a fiery battle - their walls are straightened, mattresses and large-caliber squeakers are installed in the towers. The tsar stocks up gunpowder by all means: he buys, sets up powder mills, he overlaid cities and monasteries with saltpeter duty. Sometimes this leads to frightening fires, but Ivan IV is relentless: gunpowder, as much gunpowder as possible!

The first task that is set before the army that is gaining strength is to stop the raids from the Kazan Khanate. At the same time, the young tsar is not interested in half measures, he wants to stop the raids once and for all, and for this there is only one way: to conquer Kazan and include it in the Moscow kingdom. A seventeen-year-old boy went to fight the Tatars. The three-year war ended in failure. But in 1551 the tsar appeared under the walls of Kazan again - a victory! The Kazanians asked for peace, agreed to all the demands, but, as usual, did not fulfill the peace conditions. However, this time, for some reason, the stupid Russians did not swallow the insult, and the following summer, in 1552, they again dismissed the banners near the enemy capital.

The news that infidels were smashing fellow believers far in the east caught Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent by surprise - he did not expect this at all. The Sultan ordered the Crimean Khan to help the Kazanians, and he, hastily gathering 30,000 people, moved to Rus'. The young king, at the head of 15,000 horsemen, rushed towards them and utterly defeated the uninvited guests. Following the message about the defeat of Devlet Giray, the news flew to Istanbul that there was one less khanate in the east. Before the sultan had time to digest this pill, they already told him about the accession to Moscow of another khanate, Astrakhan. It turns out that after the fall of Kazan, Khan Yamgurchey, in a fit of anger, decided to declare war on Russia...

The glory of the conqueror of the khanates brought Ivan IV new, unexpected subjects: hoping for his patronage, the Siberian Khan Yediger and the Circassian princes voluntarily swore allegiance to Moscow. The North Caucasus was also under the rule of the king. Unexpectedly for the whole world - including for itself - Russia in a matter of years more than doubled in size, went to the Black Sea and found itself face to face with the huge Ottoman Empire. This could mean only one thing: a terrible, devastating war.

blood neighbors

The stupid naivety of the closest advisers to the king, so beloved by modern historians, the so-called "Chosen One" is striking. By their own admission, these wise men, they repeatedly advised the tsar to attack the Crimea, to conquer it, like the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan. Their opinion, by the way, will be shared four centuries later by many modern historians. In order to better understand how stupid such advice is, it is enough to look at the North American continent and ask the first Mexican you meet, even a stoned and uneducated Mexican: is the boorish behavior of the Texans and the military weakness of this state a sufficient reason to attack it and return the original Mexican lands?

And they will immediately answer you that you will attack, maybe Texas, but you will have to fight with the United States.

In the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire, having weakened its pressure in other directions, could bring out five times more troops against Moscow than Russia allowed itself to mobilize. Only the Crimean Khanate, whose subjects were not engaged in any craft, or agriculture, or trade, was ready, by order of the khan, to put all its male population on horses and repeatedly went to Rus' with armies of 100-150 thousand people (some historians bring this figure to 200,000). But the Tatars were cowardly robbers, who were dealt with by detachments 3-5 times smaller in number. It is quite another thing to come together on the battlefield with battle-hardened and accustomed to conquer new lands Janissaries and Seljuks.

Ivan IV could not afford such a war.

The border contact happened unexpectedly for both countries, and therefore the first contacts of the neighbors turned out to be surprisingly peaceful. The Ottoman sultan sent a letter to the Russian Tsar, in which he amiably offered a choice of two possible ways out of the current situation: either Russia grants the Volga robbers - Kazan and Astrakhan - the former independence, or Ivan IV swears allegiance to the Magnificent Porte, being part of the Ottoman Empire along with the conquered khanates.

And for the umpteenth time in the centuries-old history, the light burned for a long time in the chambers of the Russian ruler and the fate of the future Europe was decided in painful thoughts: to be or not to be? Agree the king to the Ottoman proposal - and he will forever secure the southern borders of the country. The Sultan will no longer allow the Tatars to rob new subjects, and all the predatory aspirations of the Crimea will be directed in the only possible direction: against the eternal enemy of Moscow, the Principality of Lithuania. In this case, the rapid extermination of the enemy and the rise of Russia will become inevitable. But at what cost?..

The king refuses.

Suleiman releases the Crimean thousands, which he used in Moldavia and Hungary, and points out to the Crimean Khan Devlet-Giray a new enemy that he has to crush: Russia. A long and bloody war begins: the Tatars regularly rush towards Moscow, the Russians are fenced off by a multi-hundred-mile-long Zasechnaya Line of forest windbreaks, fortresses and earthen ramparts with stakes dug into them. Every year 60-70 thousand warriors step up to protect this giant wall.

It is clear to Ivan the Terrible, and the Sultan has repeatedly confirmed this with his letters: an attack on the Crimea will be regarded as a declaration of war on the empire. And while the Russians endure, the Ottomans also do not start active hostilities, continuing the wars already started in Europe, Africa and Asia.

Now, while the Ottoman Empire's hands are tied by battles in other places, while the Ottomans are not going to lean on Russia with all their might, there is time to accumulate strength, and Ivan IV begins vigorous transformations in the country: first of all, he introduces a regime in the country, which was later called democracy. Feedings are canceled in the country, the institute of governors appointed by the tsar is replaced by local self-government - zemstvo and provincial elders, elected by peasants, artisans and boyars. Moreover, the new regime is being imposed not with stupid stubbornness, as it is now, but prudently and reasonably. The transition to democracy is made ... for a fee. If you like the governor - live the old way. What I don't like is that local residents contribute from 100 to 400 rubles to the treasury and can choose whoever they want to be their boss.

The army is being transformed. Personally participating in several wars and battles, the king is well aware of the main misfortune of the army - localism. The boyars demand appointment to posts according to the merits of their ancestors: if my grandfather commanded a wing of the army, then the same post is assigned to me. Let the fool, and the milk on the lips has not dried up: but still the post of wing commander is mine! I don’t want to obey the old and wise prince, because his son walked under the hand of my great-grandfather! So, I'm not him, but he must obey me!

The issue is being resolved radically: a new army, the oprichnina, is being organized in the country. Oprichniki swear allegiance to the sovereign alone, and their career depends only on personal qualities. It is in the oprichnina that all mercenaries serve: Russia, waging a long and difficult war, chronically lacks soldiers, but there is enough gold to hire eternally impoverished European nobles.

In addition, Ivan IV actively builds parochial schools, fortresses, stimulates trade, purposefully creates a working class: by direct royal decree it is forbidden to involve farmers in any work related to separation from the land - work in construction, factories and factories should be workers, not peasants.

Of course, there are many opponents of such rapid transformations in the country. Just think: a simple, rootless landowner like Boriska Godunov can rise to the rank of governor simply because he is brave, smart and honest! Just think: the tsar can redeem the family estate to the treasury only because the owner does not know his business well and the peasants run away from him! Oprichniki are hated, vile rumors are spread about them, conspiracies are organized against the tsar - but Ivan the Terrible continues his transformations with a firm hand. It comes to the point that for several years he has to divide the country into two parts: the oprichnina for those who want to live in a new way and the zemstvo for those who want to preserve the old customs. However, in spite of everything, he achieved his goal, turning the ancient Moscow principality into a new, powerful state - the Russian kingdom.

The empire strikes

In 1569, the bloody respite, which consisted of continuous raids by the Tatar hordes, ended. The Sultan finally found time for Russia. 17,000 selected Janissaries, reinforced by the Crimean and Nogai cavalry, moved towards Astrakhan. The king, still hoping to do without blood, withdrew all the troops from their path, at the same time replenishing the fortress with food supplies, gunpowder and cannonballs. The campaign failed: the Turks failed to carry artillery with them, and they were not used to fighting without guns. In addition, the return crossing through the unexpectedly cold winter steppe cost the lives of most Turks.

A year later, in 1571, bypassing the Russian fortresses and knocking down the few boyar barriers, Devlet Giray brought 100,000 horsemen to Moscow, set fire to the city and returned back. Ivan the Terrible tore and threw. Boyar heads rolled. The executed were accused of specific treason: they missed the enemy, they did not report the raid in time. In Istanbul, they rubbed their hands: reconnaissance in force showed that the Russians did not know how to fight, preferring to sit behind the walls. But if the light Tatar cavalry is not able to take the fortifications, then the experienced Janissaries knew how to uncork them very well. It was decided to conquer Muscovy, for which Devlet-Giray was given 7,000 janissaries and gunners with several dozen artillery barrels - to take cities. Murzas were appointed in advance to still Russian cities, governors to the principalities that had not yet been conquered, land was divided, merchants received permission for duty-free trade. All the men of Crimea, young and old, gathered to develop new lands.

The huge army was supposed to enter the Russian borders and stay there forever.

And so it happened...

battlefield

On July 6, 1572, Devlet-Giray reached the Oka, came across a 50,000-strong army under the command of Prince Mikhail Vorotynsky (many historians estimate the size of the Russian army at 20,000 people, and the Ottoman one at 80,000) and, laughing at the stupidity of the Russians, turned up along the river. Near the Senkin ford, he easily dispersed a detachment of 200 boyars and, having crossed the river, moved towards Moscow along the Serpukhov road. Vorotynsky hastened to follow.

With a speed unprecedented in Europe, huge masses of cavalry moved across the Russian expanses - both armies moved light, on horseback, not burdened with convoys.

Oprichnik Dmitry Khvorostinin sneaked on the heels of the Tatars to the village of Molodi at the head of a 5000th detachment of Cossacks and boyars, and only here, on July 30, 1572, he received permission to attack the enemy. Rushing forward, he trampled the Tatar rearguard into the road dust and, rushing further, crashed into the main forces near the Pakhra River. Slightly surprised at such impudence, the Tatars turned around and rushed at the small detachment with all their forces. The Russians rushed to their heels - the enemies rushed after them, chasing the guardsmen to the very village of Molodi, and then an unexpected surprise awaited the invaders: the Russian army, deceived on the Oka, was already here. And not just stood, but managed to build a walk-city - a mobile fortification of thick wooden shields. From the gaps between the shields, cannons hit the steppe cavalry, squeaks rumbled from the loopholes cut in the log walls, a shower of arrows poured over the fortification. A friendly volley swept away the advanced Tatar detachments - as if a huge hand brushed unnecessary crumbs from the table. The Tatars mixed up - Khvorostinin turned his soldiers around and again rushed to the attack.

Walk-city (Wagenburg), from a 15th-century engraving, created after 1480

Thousands of horsemen approaching along the road, one after another, fell into a cruel meat grinder. Tired boyars then retreated behind the shields of the walk-city, under the cover of dense fire, then rushed into more and more new attacks. The Ottomans, in a hurry to destroy the fortress that had come from nowhere, rushed to storm wave after wave, abundantly flooding the Russian land with their blood, and only the darkness that descended stopped the endless slaughter.

In the morning, the truth was revealed to the Ottoman army in all its horrifying ugliness: the invaders realized that they had fallen into a trap. Ahead along the Serpukhov road stood the solid walls of Moscow, behind the path to the steppe was fenced off by iron-clad guardsmen and archers. Now, for the uninvited guests, it was no longer about conquering Russia, but about getting back alive.

The next two days passed in an attempt to frighten off the Russians who blocked the road - the Tatars showered the walk-city with arrows, cannonballs, rushed at him in horseback attacks, hoping to break through the gaps left for the passage of the boyar cavalry. However, by the third day it became clear that the Russians would rather die on the spot than let the intruders get out. On August 2, Devlet Giray ordered his soldiers to dismount and attack the Russians along with the Janissaries.

The Tatars were well aware that this time they were not going to rob, but to save their own skin, and they fought like mad dogs. The intensity of the battle reached the highest tension. It got to the point that the Crimeans tried to break the hated shields with their hands, and the Janissaries gnawed them with their teeth and chopped them with scimitars. But the Russians were not going to release the eternal robbers into the wild, give them the opportunity to catch their breath and return again. Blood flowed all day - but by evening the walk-city continued to stand still in its place.

Hunger was fierce in the Russian camp - after all, chasing the enemy, the boyars and archers thought about weapons, and not about food, simply leaving the convoy with supplies of food and drink. As chronicles note: “The regiments taught to be a great hunger for people and horses”. Here it should be recognized that, along with the Russian soldiers, the German mercenaries, whom the tsar willingly took as guardsmen, endured thirst and hunger. However, the Germans also did not grumble, but continued to fight no worse than others.

The Tatars were furious: they were accustomed not to fight with the Russians, but to drive them into slavery. The Ottoman murzas, who were going to rule the new lands, and not die on them, were also not laughing. Everyone was looking forward to the dawn in order to strike the final blow and finally break the seemingly fragile fortification, exterminate the people hiding behind it.

With the onset of twilight, the governor Vorotynsky took with him part of the soldiers, went around the enemy camp along the hollow and hid there. And in the early morning, when, after a friendly volley at the attacking Ottomans, the boyars headed by Khvorostinin rushed towards them and started a fierce slaughter, Vorotynsky unexpectedly hit the enemies in the back. And what started out as a fight quickly turned into a beating.

Arithmetic

On the field near the village of Molodi, the defenders of Moscow completely slaughtered all the Janissaries and Ottoman Murzas, almost the entire male population of Crimea died on it. And not only ordinary soldiers - the son, grandson and son-in-law of Devlet-Girey himself were killed under Russian sabers. Having, according to various estimates, either three times or four times less forces than the enemy, the Russian soldiers forever eliminated the danger emanating from the Crimea. No more than 20,000 of the bandits who went on a campaign managed to return alive - and never again the Crimea was able to restore its strength.

This was the first major defeat in the history of the Ottoman Empire. Having lost almost 20,000 Janissaries and the entire huge army of its satellite on the Russian borders in three years, the Magnificent Porte gave up hopes of conquering Russia.

The victory of Russian weapons was of great importance for Europe as well. In the Battle of Molodi, we not only defended our independence, but also deprived the Ottoman Empire of the opportunity to increase its production capacity and army by about a third. In addition, for the huge Ottoman province, which could have arisen in the place of Russia, there was only one way for further expansion - to the west. Retreating under blows in the Balkans, Europe would hardly have resisted even a few years, if the Turkish onslaught had increased even slightly.

The village of Molodi. Foundation stone in memory of the victory in the Battle of Molodi in 1572

The last Rurikovich

Only one question remains to be answered: why don’t they make films about the Battle of Molodi, don’t talk about it at school, don’t celebrate its anniversary with holidays?

The fact is that the battle that determined the future of the entire European civilization took place during the reign of the king, who is not supposed to be not only good, but simply normal. Ivan groznyj, greatest king in the history of Rus', who actually created the country in which we live - who entered the reign of the Moscow principality and left behind Great Russia, was the last of the Rurik dynasty. After him, the Romanov dynasty came to the throne - and they did their best to belittle the significance of everything done by the previous dynasty and defame the greatest of its representatives.

According to the highest instructions, Ivan the Terrible was appointed to be bad - and along with the memory of him, the great victory, obtained with considerable difficulty by our ancestors, was also forbidden.

The first of the Romanov dynasty gave the Swedes the coast of the Baltic Sea and access to Lake Ladoga. His son introduced hereditary serfdom, depriving the industry and the Siberian expanses of free workers and migrants. Under his great-grandson, the army created by Ivan IV was broken and the industry that supplied weapons to all of Europe was destroyed (the Tula-Kamensky factories alone sold to the west a year up to 600 guns, tens of thousands of cannonballs, thousands of grenades, muskets and swords).

Russia was rapidly slipping into an era of degradation.

Alexander Prozorov

The Battle of Molodi (or Molodinskaya battle) is a major battle that took place between July 29 and August 2, 1572 near the village of Molodi near Serpukhov (not far from Moscow). In the battle, the Russian army under the command of princes Mikhail Vorotynsky and Dmitry Khvorostinin and the army of the Crimean Khan Devlet I Girey, which included, in addition to the Crimean troops, Turkish and Nogai troops, met. And although the Crimean Turkish army had a significant numerical superiority, it was completely defeated.

The Russians used in the battle an effective defense tactic in a mobile fortress made of wooden shields - a walk-city, and strikes at the front and rear of the enemy, exhausted in five-day battles. In that battle, Davlet Giray lost almost the entire male population of the khanate. However, the Russians did not embark on a campaign against the Crimea in order to finish off the enemy, because the principality was weakened by a war on two fronts.

background

1571 - Khan Davlet-Girey took advantage of the fact that the Russian troops left for, destroyed and plundered Moscow. Then the Tatars took 60,000 people into captivity - this is, in fact, almost the entire population of the city. A year later (1572), the khan wanted to repeat his raid, hatching an ambitious plan to annex Muscovy to his possessions.

On the eve of the battle

The Russian army met the Tatar cavalry on the Oka on July 27, 1572. For two days there were battles for the crossings, in the end, the dashing Nogais were able to break through the stretched defenses at Senka's ford. Voivode Dmitry Khvorostinin rushed to close the gap with his advanced regiment, but he was too late. The main forces of the Tatars had already crossed over and, having defeated the regiment of voivode Nikita Odoevsky that blocked the path, they went along the Serpukhov road to Moscow.

It should be noted that although Khvorostinin was listed in the oprichnina, for the most part he was not engaged in murder at all in the capital. Throughout all these years, he fought with the Tatars on the southern borders, and there he earned the reputation of perhaps the best military leader in Rus': as the English traveler Ambassador Fletcher later wrote, Khvorostinin is “their main husband, most used in wartime.” His military talent was so great that he allowed Dmitry Ivanovich to make a brilliant career for his artistry. Although it is Khvorostinin who also owns a kind of record - in history he remained the “champion” in the number of parochial lawsuits filed against him, no one else was so often put in command of the army, bypassing more noble applicants.

Not having time to prevent a breakthrough, Khvorostinin relentlessly moved behind the Tatars, waiting for an opportunity. Following him, leaving the convoy, Vorotynsky went in pursuit with the main forces - it was impossible to let the Tatars go to Moscow.

balance of power

Russian army:
Large regiment - 8255 people and the Cossacks of Mikhail Cherkashenin;
Regiment right hand- 3590 people;
Regiment of the left hand - 1651 people;
Advanced regiment - 4475 people;
Guard regiment - 4670 people;
In total, more than 22 thousand soldiers were gathered at the hand of Prince Vorotynsky
Crimean Tatars:
60,000 horsemen, as well as numerous detachments of the Big and Small Nogai hordes.

The course of the Battle of Molodi

The moment Khvorostinin presented himself only 45 miles from Moscow, near the village of Molodi, - having attacked the rearguard of the Tatar troops, he was able to inflict a heavy defeat on the Tatars. After that, the khan stopped the attack on the capital, deciding first to deal with the Russian army "cling to the tail". The main forces of the Tatars were able to easily overthrow Khvorostinin's regiment, but he, retreating, drew the Tatar army to the deployed Vorotyn "walk-city" - that was the name of Wagenburg in Rus', a mobile fortification, which is formed by wagons linked in a circle. Retreating, Khvorostinin passed under the very walls of the "walk-city", and the Tatars who rushed after him were met by Russian artillery hidden in the fortification, which pretty much mowed down the pursuers. The embittered Tatar army moved to the attack.

It was a prelude to the decisive battle - most of the Tatars went on the assault on the "walk-city", the rest fought in the field with the noble militia. The Suzdal boyar son Temir Alalykin distinguished himself - he was able to capture one of the highest-ranking Crimean nobles Divey-Murza, the head of the Mangit clan, the second in nobility after the ruling Gireys. The Russians nevertheless repulsed the onslaught, but in the morning a surprise awaited them - there was no continuation of the assault. The Tatar army, taking advantage of the superiority in numbers, took the Russian army into the ring and froze in anticipation.

It was not difficult to unravel their intentions - the Tatars found out that the Russian army had abandoned the convoy and was left without supplies, and given that the encirclement made it difficult to supply the troops with water, it was only necessary to wait. Wait until the exhausted Russians are forced to leave the fortifications in order to take the fight in an open field. With such a large difference in the number of troops, the outcome was a foregone conclusion. The captive Divey-Murza, mockingly, told Vorotynsky that, if he were free, he would be able to exhaust the enemy from the “walk-city” in 5-6 days.

Walk-city (Wagenburg)

Siege

The siege, disastrous for the Russian army, continued for two days, and in "the regiments taught to be hungry people and a great horse," they ate dead horses. Managed to save the army Vorotynsky Moscow Governor Prince Tokmakov. In the capital, which was very close (now Molodi - a village in the Chekhov district of the Moscow region), of course, they knew what a desperate situation the Russian army had fallen into. The cunning Moscow voivode sent Vorotynsky a “false letter”, which said that they “sit fearlessly”, because a huge Novgorod army led by Tsar Ivan IV himself is coming to the rescue. In fact, the letter was addressed not to Vorotynsky, but to the Tatars. The Moscow messenger was captured, tortured and executed, he paid with his life for misinformation.

And in the morning, the Tatars, although they did not turn back, as Tokmakov had hoped, nevertheless abandoned the idea of ​​starving the Russian army out and resumed active operations.

Assault on the "walk-city"

On August 2, the Tatars threw all their forces into the assault on the “walk-city”. Having carried out several unsuccessful attacks, the Khan ordered his soldiers to dismount and, under the leadership of the Janissaries, attack the Wagenburg on foot. This last onslaught was terrible, the Tatars and Turks, having lined the slopes of the hill with dead soldiers, were able to get to the very walls of the makeshift fortress. They cut the walls of the wagons with sabers, trying to overturn them: "... and the Tatars came to the walk and were seized from the city behind the wall with their hands, and then they beat many Tatars and cut off countless hands."

Monument to the Battle of Molodin

Defeat of the Tatars at the Battle of Molodi

And then an event occurred that decided the outcome of this fateful battle. As it turned out, Vorotynsky, taking advantage of the fact that the entire Tatar army was concentrated on one side of the hill, undertook an extremely risky maneuver. He left Khvorostinin in command of the defense of the "walk-city", and himself with a "large regiment", having passed unnoticed along the bottom of the hollow, went to the rear of the Crimean Horde. Two blows followed at the same time - as soon as Vorotynsky struck from the rear, immediately “Prince Dmitry Khvorostinin came out of the walking city with the archers and the Germans” and attacked from his side. Having fallen "in the pincers", the army of Devlet-Girey could not stand it and ran. Both detachments of Russians: both the zemstvo Vorotynsky and the guardsman Khvorostinin rushed after them - to finish them off.

It was not even a rout - a massacre. The Tatars were driven to the Oka, and because the vast majority of Krymchaks had a chance to run away on foot, the losses were huge. The Russians not only cut down the retreating, but also almost completely cut out the two thousandth rearguard left to guard the crossing. In the Battle of Molodi, almost all the Janissaries were killed, the khan's army did not count the majority of the murzas, the sons of the kalga, the second person in the khanate, were hacked to death. In the Battle of Molodi, the son, grandson and son-in-law of Devlet-Girey himself were killed, "and many Murzas and Totars were caught alive." No more than 15,000 survivors returned to Crimea.

Consequences of the battle of Molodin

And so this battle ended, which bled the Crimean Khanate for many decades. Invasions of Rus' stopped for almost 20 years. In our time, this battle is half-forgotten, although in terms of its significance for Russia it is not inferior to either the Battle of Borodino or the Battle of Borodino.

The winners were greeted with rejoicing by the whole Russian land. Already on August 6, the messengers were able to reach the sovereign, and thanksgiving prayers began in Novgorod churches. Russia was saved. Saved by a miracle.

And returning to the capital by the end of August, he canceled.

On the Don and Desna, the border fortifications were moved to the south by 300 km, after some short time, under Fyodor Ivanovich, Voronezh and a new fortress in Yelets were founded - they began to develop the rich black earth, which previously belonged to the Wild Field.