“There are 6745 (1237) per year...

The godless Tsar Batu came to the Russian land with many Tatar warriors and stood on the river in Voronezh near the land of Ryazan. And he sent his ambassadors to Ryazan to Grand Duke Yuri of Ryazan, demanding from him a tenth share in everything: in princes, in all sorts of people, and in the rest.”

Prince Yuri Ryazansky gave the following answer to the Tatar ambassadors: “When none of us are alive, you will take everything we have for yourself!” And the accursed Batu began to fight the Ryazan land and went to Ryazan. And he besieged the city..."

The Battle of Ryazan in historiography is considered an episode of the Western (Kypchak) campaign of the Mongols (1236-1242), as well as the first major battle of Russian and Mongol troops of the era of the Mongol-Tatar invasion of Rus' (1237-1238).

Having sent the Mongol embassy empty-handed to Batu’s headquarters, Yuri Ryazansky began to prepare for the defense of the city. Messengers were sent to Pronsk and Kolomna, Murom and Chernigov for help, but in the meantime, trying to gain time, Yuri sent a large embassy to the Tatars, led by his son Prince Fedor. On carts, envoys from Ryazan carried rich gifts for which Rus' was famous: expensive furs, valuable handicrafts, weapons, honey. Following the convoy, the warriors drove a large herd of well-groomed riding stallions as a gift to the khan.

Batu received the Russian embassy, ​​negotiations began. At first, the khan was inclined towards peaceful relations with Russia and was ready to be content with rich gifts, but one of the Ryazan traitor boyars told him about the beauty of Prince Fedor’s wife, the Byzantine princess Eupraxia.

And then Batu demanded Princess Eupraxia on his bed. Prince Fedor answered the lustful Mongol: “It is not right for us Christians to bring our wives to you, the wicked king, for fornication. When you defeat us, then you will own our wives.” In response, the enraged khan ordered to chop up Fedor and his best warriors and throw their bodies to be torn to pieces by animals and birds. According to the chronicle, only the uncle of the young Prince Aponits survived, who, hiding, watched the execution with tears. When it got dark, he was able to carry away the body of the murdered Fedor and buried him in the Ryazan forests, and then informed Prince Yuri Ryazansky about the death of his son.

The wife of the young prince, the beautiful Eupraxia, hearing about the death of her husband, took her three-year-old son Ivan Fedorovich in her arms, climbed to the roof of the temple bell tower and rushed down with the baby. Both mother and son died.

Having buried the young princess, the Ryazan warriors began to prepare for battle. Prince Yuri told them: “It is better for us to gain eternal glory by death than to be in the power of the filthy.” The people of Ryazan left the city walls and met the Mongol army on the approaches to the city walls. A bloody dawn burned over the dark forest when the leading Tatar regiments appeared on the field. The Russians attacked the Tatars from both sides. The movement of the dark avalanche slowed down, but after the first Tatar regiment a second and third appeared... The Tatars began to flow around the field, knocking down the Russian foot barriers and sweeping them out of their way.

Many Tatars and Russian soldiers died in this battle. One of the Russian princes - Oleg the Red - was wounded and captured by Batu, who was surprised at the strength of the Russian prince-hero. He offered Oleg life and wealth in exchange for his service to the Horde. Spitting in the face was his answer. This is how Oleg the Red found his death, without selling his Fatherland and faith.

Ryazan held out for six days under the blows of the Mongol-Tatar troops. For six days the Ryazan people stood firmly on the city walls. Many thousands of Tatars lay down near Ryazan, and the snow was covered with their blood. Everyone defended the city - from young to old. Women and children cooked resin and boiled water in vats, and carried stones to the walls. The Tatars, scalded by boiling tar, rolled away from the walls to their tents, and new hordes came to take the place of those who had left. The people of Ryazan stood on the walls continuously, without rest and without sleep.

The Ryazans fought for a day, two and three. On the fourth day, the weak began to collapse, falling asleep on their feet. They were woken up. The warriors woke up and with the last of their strength rushed to the battlefield, chopped down the Tatars who had climbed the walls, and threw them into the ditches. Having repelled the onslaught, they again looked for a place where they could lean and sleep. On the sixth day there was little left on the walls of those who were awake.

On the morning of December 21, 1237, “the filthy ones went to the city - some with lights, others with battering machines, and others with countless ladders.” And Ryazan fell under the blows of Batu’s army. Struck by the horrific losses in the fight for the Russian city, Batu ordered not to spare anyone. This is how the chronicle describes the death of Ryazan:

“And in the city they flogged many people, wives, and children with swords, and drowned others in the river, and flogged the priests and monks without a trace, and burned the whole city, and all the famous beauty, and the wealth of Ryazan, and the relatives of the Ryazan princes - the princes of Kyiv and Chernigov - captured. And they destroyed the temples of God and shed a lot of blood in the holy altars. And not a single living person remained in the city: they all died anyway and drank the single cup of death. There was no one moaning or crying here - no father and mother about their children, no children about their father and mother, no brother about their brother, no relatives about their relatives, but they all lay dead together.”

Archaeological excavations

The Mongol-Tatar army destroyed the vast majority of the residents of Ryazan and the people who took refuge in the city. Information about this given in “The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu” was confirmed by archaeological excavations of 1977-1979.

“The study of anthropological materials showed: of the 143 opened burials, the majority belong to men aged 30 to 40 years and women from 30 to 35 years. There are many children's burials, from infants to 6-10 years old. These are the Ryazan people, whom the conquerors exterminated without exception, many after the capture of the city. The boys, girls and young women who survived were probably divided among the warriors.

The skeleton of a pregnant woman was found; the murdered man was clutching a small child to his chest. Some of the skeletons had broken skulls, the bones bore traces of saber blows, and their hands were severed. Many individual skulls. Arrowheads stuck in the bones. Residents of cities who showed stubborn resistance faced brutal reprisals. With the exception of artisans and those enslaved, the rest of the prisoners were hacked to death with an ax or double-edged ax.

Mass executions took place methodically and cold-bloodedly: the condemned were divided among the centurions, who instructed each slave to kill at least ten people. According to the stories of chroniclers, after the fall of Ryazan, Russian men, women and children, monks, nuns and priests were destroyed by fire and sword, crucified, and struck with arrows. The prisoners’ heads were cut off: during excavations, clusters of 27 and 70 skulls were discovered, on which blows from sharp weapons were visible.”

Excavations confirmed the story of “The Tale of the Capture of Ryazan by Batu” about how the surviving townspeople buried their dead fellow citizens after the departure of the Tatars:

“In the mass graves of Ryazan, the dead were buried without coffins, in common pits up to 1 m deep, and the frozen ground was heated with fires. They were laid down according to Christian rites - with their heads to the west, with their hands folded on their chests. The skeletons lie in rows, close to each other, in some places in two or three tiers.”

Excavations also showed that after the capture of Ryazan, the Tatars destroyed all its fortifications, and the city itself was burned to the ground. At this point, Ryazan was no longer revived. The surviving Ryazan residents, after the departure of the Tatars, made their capital the city of Pereyaslavl Ryazan, located 50 km from Old Ryazan, which from the mid-14th century began to be called New Ryazan.

After the death of Old Ryazan, some of its inhabitants managed to hide in the forests, others went north to join the Vladimir troops. Having destroyed Ryazan, Batu led his horde to the Suzdal lands. And the first city that stood in his way here was Moscow.

From the chronicles we know that the Tatars destroyed not only Ryazan, but also ruined the entire Ryazan principality. They took and burned the cities - Pronsk, Belgorod-Ryazansky, Voronezh-Ryazansky, Dedoslavl, the ruins of which stood charred and deserted for several centuries before people began to settle here again.

"The Tale of Evpatiy Kolovrat"

Evpatiy Lvovich Kolovrat, or Evpatiy the Furious (1200 - 1238) - the legendary Ryazan hero, boyar and governor, one of the heroic characters in "The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu", the hero of a Ryazan folk tale of the 13th century.

When the Mongol-Tatar troops approached Ryazan, Prince Yuri Ryazansky with governor Evpatiy Kolovrat rushed to Chernigov to gather troops for the defense of his native city. On the way back from Chernigov, Evpatiy, who was leading a small detachment of volunteers to Ryazan, learned that Ryazan had fallen under the blows of Tatar rams. In “The Tale of the Capture of Ryazan by Batu” we read:

“And Evpatiy rushed to the city of Ryazan, and saw the city devastated, the sovereigns killed and many people perished: some were killed and flogged, others were burned, and others were drowned in the river. And Evpatiy cried out in the grief of his soul, burning in his heart. And he gathered a small squad - one thousand seven hundred people, whom God preserved outside the city. And they chased after the godless king, and barely caught up with him in the land of Suzdal, and suddenly attacked the Batu camps.”

“The Tale” gives us one of the first written reports about the emergence of a popular guerrilla war among the population of the Old Russian state against the enemies who occupied the Russian land.

Having assembled a squad of 1,700 people from the surviving Ryazan residents, Evpatiy rushed after the Tatars retreating into the depths of North-Eastern Rus'. Acting by guerrilla methods, he unexpectedly attacked the enemy day and night, smashed his convoys and destroyed the manpower of the invaders. The Mongolian regiments were crushed. Horror and panic gripped the Tatars. It seemed to them that these dead Ryazan residents had risen and were taking revenge on the murderers. Seeing the courage and bravery of the avengers, Batu himself shuddered before the popular wrath of the Slavs.

With great difficulty, the khan’s nukers managed to capture the wounded and bleeding five warriors of Evpatiy Kolovrat. The prisoners were brought to Batu, and then he began to ask them who they were, what faith they were, and why they were treating his people so cruelly. The Russians replied:

“We are of Christian faith, servants of the Grand Duke Ingvar Ingvarevich of Ryazan, and from the regiment we are Evpatiy Kolovrat. We were sent from Prince Ingvar Ingvarevich of Ryazan to honor you, the strong Tsar, and to see you off with honor, and to give you honor. Do not be surprised, Tsar, that We don’t have time to pour cups on the great power of the Tatar army.”

Then Batu sent the best Tatar heroes, led by his son-in-law Khostovrul, against Evpatiy Kolovrat. Before leaving, Khostovrul boasted to Batu that he would bring him Evpatiy alive to the Khan’s court. But in the battle with Evpatiy, all the khan’s envoys died:

“And Khostovrul moved in with Evpatiy. Evpatiy was a giant of force and cut Khostovrul in half to the saddle. And he began to flog the Tatar force, and beat many of the famous heroes of the Batyevs, cut some in half, and chopped others to the saddle. And the Tatars became afraid, seeing what a strong giant Evpatiy was.”

Not having the strength to cope with Evpatiy’s detachment, the Tatars ambushed him and used battering machines against the people. With great difficulty, the enemies managed to defeat Evpatiy and many of his warriors and capture the surviving Russians. And they brought the body of the murdered Evpatiy to Batu so that he could look at the Russian hero, whom he feared and was dead. Khan gathered his commanders so that they could look at the hero of the Ryazan people. And they said to their king:

“We have been with many kings, in many lands, in many battles, but we have never seen such daredevils and spirited men, and our fathers did not tell us. These are winged people, they do not know death, and so strong and courageously, riding on horses, they fight - one with a thousand, and two with darkness. Not one of them will leave the massacre alive.”

Bending over the body of the Russian hero, Batu then said:

“Oh Kolovrat Evpatiy! You treated me well with your small retinue, and you beat many heroes of my strong horde, and defeated many regiments. If such a one served with me, I would keep him close to my heart.”

After this, Batu ordered that Evpatiy’s body be given to the Russian soldiers who survived the battle and released to all four directions so that they could bury their hero with dignity. Chronicles tell us that on January 11, 1238, in the main Ryazan Cathedral, partially cleared of fire, Ryazan residents held a solemn funeral for Evpatiy Lvovich Kolovrat...

Near Old Ryazan, a grassy hill has survived to this day, erected, according to the guards, over the grave of a Russian hero. The hill rises among the fields and small groves of the Ryazan region and reminds us of the great past of this land. Nowadays, a small chapel has been erected on this site, where everyone who comes here can honor the memory of the great national hero of the Russian people.

Today in Russia there are three monuments to the Russian hero Evpatiy Kolovrat. All of them are located in the Ryazan region. The first was erected in the city of Shilovo, which, according to legend, is the birthplace of the Russian hero. The second was opened on October 18, 2007 in the center of Ryazan, not far from the Ryazan Kremlin. The third is installed at the exit from the village of Frolovo towards Ryazan.

The main monument, located on the central square of Ryazan, represents the figure of a Slavic warrior sitting on a horse soaring to the sky, whose hooves rest on a pedestal of red stone, symbolizing the blood-stained Ryazan land. Excerpts from ancient Russian chronicles are carved on stone steles installed near the monument.

Many works of Russian writers and poets are also dedicated to Evpatiy Kolovrat, among whom “The Tale of Evpatiy Kolovrat” by Sergei Yesenin (1912) and “The Tale of Evpatiy Kolovrat” by Sergei Markin (1941) are especially popular.

May the memory of the great hero of the Russian people

will forever remain in our hearts!

2. Battle of Kolomna (1238)

After Batu's invasion of the Ryazan principality, messengers from Ryazan arrived in Vladimir asking for help, but the Vladimir prince Yuri Vsevolodovich refused to send a squad to the walls of Ryazan. Soon after this, Batu sent his ambassadors to Vladimir, who hypocritically invited Yuri Vsevolodovich to make peace with the Tatars. However, the Vladimir prince, having unraveled the khan’s insidious plan, abandoned such a peace and decided to gather a militia to fight the Mongol invasion.

The area near Kolomna was chosen for the battle, blocking the movement of Tatar troops towards Moscow and Vladimir. Vsevolod, the eldest son of the Vladimir prince, brought his regiments here. Soon, Moscow squads led by Prince Vladimir, as well as Novgorod regiments and the remnants of the defenders of Ryazan, came to Kolomna. Batu also concentrated his forces here.

“On January 10, 1238, the Russian army took up a battle formation: a guard regiment under the command of governor Eremey Glebovich was moved forward, and the combined forces of the Russians moved behind it. A stubborn battle broke out, and many chroniclers noted that “the slaughter was great.” First, the Russian regiments pushed back the regiments of Khan Kulkan and broke into the depths of the Mongol-Tatars, disrupting their battle formation for some time. In this battle, Khan Kulkan was mortally wounded. He was the only one of the Chingizids who died during Batu’s campaign against Rus'.”

To support his soldiers, Batu brought fresh forces into the battle and was able to restore order in his troops. Many Russian princes died in this battle. Vsevolod with a small squad was able to break through to Vladimir. Together with him, the remnants of the Novgorod regiments left from near Kolomna. The youngest son of the Vladimir prince, with the surviving part of the squad and the governor Philip Nyanka, took refuge behind the walls of Moscow. So the attempt of the united Russian army to keep Batu Khan on the borders of the Vladimir principality failed.

The Battle of Kolomna was the second major battle of Russian troops against the Mongol Empire after Kalka.

In terms of the number of participants and the tenacity of resistance, the Battle of Kolomna is considered the most significant event of the Mongol-Tatar invasion of Rus'. Despite the defeat of the Russian troops, the Tatars lost significant forces near Kolomna and, after the capture of Vladimir in February 1238, abandoned another open battle with the united Russian forces assembled by the Vladimir prince Yuri Vsevolodovich.

Memorial stele on the Sit River

To the Sit River, where the people of Vladimir were preparing a new battle with the Tatars, Batu sent Burundai’s corps, hoping to hold back the Russian troops in a protracted battle in order to have time to advance his main forces deeper into Rus'. In an unprecedentedly short time, having overcome the path through the Vladimir forests and approaching the City from a side unexpected for the Russians, Burundai, with the help of reconnaissance, established that the people of Vladimir were not yet ready for battle. Only their three thousand vanguard had already been advanced to meet the Tatars.

Unexpectedly attacking the dispersed Vladimir squads, Burundai surrounded the Russian army and almost completely destroyed it in an unequal battle. Almost all the princes, led by Yuri Vsevolodovich, died, and many Russian soldiers were captured by the Tatars and were brutally killed in the Shernsky forest.

The defeat of the Russian troops on the City River temporarily broke the Slavic resistance to the Mongol invasion and predetermined the capture of all North-Eastern Rus' by Batu's army.

However, both Burundai's corps and Batu's main forces were greatly weakened during the conquests, which was the reason for their abandonment of the campaign against Novgorod and the suspension, and then complete abandonment of the campaign against Western Europe. Let us recall once again the words of A.S. Pushkin that the vast expanses of Rus' “absorbed the power of the Mongols and stopped their invasion at the very edge of Europe.” The Tatars did not dare to leave behind the land in their rear, even if temporarily captured, whose people showed unprecedented examples of heroism in the fight against the barbarians. A.S. Pushkin: “The emerging Enlightenment was saved by a torn and dying Russia.”

Relief on a marble stele in memory of the heroes of the Battle of the City River

3. Defense of Moscow (1238)

The defense of Moscow from the Mongol-Tatars is described in most detail in the Laurentian Chronicle, but even here this story is very brief:

“The same winter, the Tatars took Moscow, and killed the governor Philip Nyanka for the faithful peasant faith, and with the hands of Prince Volodimer, the son of Yuriev, and beat the people from an old man to a mere babe; and the city and the holy churches were set on fire, and all the monasteries and villages were burned, and they took away a lot of property.”

Today it is known that immediately after the destruction of Ryazan, Batu’s army headed across the ice of the Moscow River to Moscow, which attracted the Tatars with its wealth. Batu knew that the main forces of the defenders died in the battle of Kolomna, where the united Russian army tried to stop the further advance of the Tatars deeper into Rus'. As a result, there was no one left to defend Moscow.

Information has been preserved about the heroic defense of Moscow by its population, led by governor Philip Nyanka. Despite the small number of defenders, Moscow, according to contemporaries, held out for 5 days. And in unpreserved Russian sources he mentions successful night raids by Moscow detachments, which cost the Tatars significant losses. In one of these forays, Philip Nyanka fell alive into the hands of the enemies and was furiously hacked to pieces by them without any trial. After this, Moscow was burned by the Tatars, and young Vladimir, the heir of the Vladimir prince who died near Kolomna, was captured.

Juvaini’s “History of the Conqueror of the World” says that the Mongols besieged the Russian city of M.S.K.,

“... whose surroundings were covered with swamps and forest, so dense that it was impossible for a snake to crawl through [it]. The Tatar princes jointly surrounded [the city] from different sides and first built such a wide road on each side that three or four carts could drive side by side, and then they placed throwing weapons against its walls. A few days later they left only its name from this city and found [there] a lot of booty”...

4. Defense of Vladimir (1238)

After the capture of Moscow, the Mongol-Tatar troops moved along the ice of the Klyazma River to Vladimir, and on a frosty day on February 3, 1238, Batu with all his forces approached the city. Khan made an attempt to persuade the residents of Vladimir to peacefully surrender the city, guaranteeing them the preservation of life and property. The captive prince Vladimir was brought to the Golden Gate, who, according to the khan, was supposed to convince his mother and brothers to open the fortress gates. Vladimir refused to carry out Batu’s will and was brutally killed in front of the townspeople in front of the fortress gates.

Having lost hope of a bloodless capture of Vladimir for the Tatars, Batu positioned his main troops against the city’s Golden Gate, and pitched his tent on Icy Mountain.
On February 4, the Tatars made their first attempt to break into the city, but their attacks were repulsed. On the same day, part of Batu’s detachments went to Bogolyubov and Suzdal, which were soon captured, ruined and set on fire.

The next day, Batu’s troops began an assault on Vladimir against the Church of the Savior from the western side. At this point the ditch was dry, and the besiegers easily covered it with brushwood. The city wall was bombarded with vices and battering rams all day long. Finally, the Tatar detachments managed to make a breach, but the defenders of the city managed to close it and repelled the attack again.

On February 6, the khan ordered to surround the city with a wooden fence to prevent a sudden attack by the defenders. On February 7, at sunrise, the assault on the city resumed. This time the enemy began to attack from all sides.

The battles took place at the Golden Gate, at the old breach, at the Silver, Irinin, Copper and Volga gates. The besiegers outnumbered the city's defenders. And before noon they captured part of the city from the Golden Gate to the Monomakh Fortress.

On the shoulders of the retreating defenders, the Mongol-Tatars burst into the central part of Vladimir and captured the Kremlin. The people who took refuge in the Assumption Cathedral, including the family of the Vladimir prince, died in the fire of the church set on fire by the Tatars. Vladimir was devastated and burned. Many Vladimir residents died. Those of the defenders who were not killed were captured. " The Tatars led barefoot and without veils into their camps, dying of frost", the Russian chronicler later reported.

After the capture of Vladimir, Batu sent his troops to capture Yuryev-Polsky, Starodub Klyazmensky, Pereyaslavl Zalessky and other cities. Throughout February, the Vladimir land burned, cities and villages collapsed in the fire, and villages disappeared.

5. “Evil City” Kozelsk (1238)

Having captured and plundered the Vladimir principality, Batu’s troops headed towards Novgorod along the Seliger road. However, the forces of the nomads were undermined by the unexpected resistance of Russian cities and villages of North-Eastern Rus'. Before reaching Novgorod 100 versts, Batu was forced to turn his hordes to the south.

Along the way, the Tatars continued to burn and destroy Russian cities. Some of the invaders walked through the already plundered Ryazan lands, while the main forces, led by Batu, moved towards the Chernigov principality. At the end of March 1238, they approached the small Russian town of Kozelsk, located on the banks of the Zhizdra River. Thanks to the efforts of the 12-year-old Prince Vasily and the Kozelsky governor, the city was well fortified before the arrival of the nomads - surrounded by ramparts, thick palisades and ditches with water.

However, the Tatars carried powerful siege equipment with them and drove prisoners, whose bodies they were going to quickly climb to the fortress walls of Kozelsk. How did a small Russian town with a population of 10 thousand people, of whom only 2 thousand could be considered warriors, be able to not only withstand the enemy’s siege for 7 weeks, but also actively resist Batu’s 40 thousand-strong army?

On March 25, 1238, the heroic defense of Kozelsk began, which lasted more than 50 days. It amazed contemporaries so much that it was preserved in detail by them in chronicles and passed on to descendants. From the very beginning, the residents of the city had no illusions about their future fate. The Kozelites took part in the Battle of Kalka and knew the value of Tatar promises.

During the negotiations, the barbarians tried to morally break the defenders of the city, convincing them that under the leadership of the young prince the squad could not defend the city. They threatened the prince and governor of Kozelsk with cruel reprisals if the city did not open the gates. However, the townspeople refused to enter into negotiations with Batu. A two-month siege began.

Despite the fact that Batu had both siege equipment and his own tactics for storming fortresses, worked out over the years, the Tatars were unable to use them near Kozelsk. The fortress stood on a hill up to 20 meters high and had walls 10 meters high. It was impossible even to drag the siege towers towards the city along an almost vertical ridge. In addition, it was spring, and the city was reliably protected by mud: the two rivers surrounding it overflowed and turned the soil around into a continuous mess. Shooting from bows and siege weapons from afar did not bring success to the Tatars.

Rasputitsa cut off Batu’s already battered army from the rest of the Tatars marching through the Ryazan lands, thereby depriving them of hope of receiving help. In March-April, Batu simply did not have enough soldiers to fight the natural elements, and decided to wait until the flood subsided and the fortress became more vulnerable.

The Tatars set up camp near Kozelsk and waited for the rest of their troops to arrive. Meanwhile, the residents not only held the line, but actively fought, making night forays and destroying enemy personnel. Batu suffered losses from their sabotage actions for seven weeks, but did not want to leave Kozelsk. His departure would mean the loss of the authority of the commander-in-chief, who was already shaken after the retreat from Novgorod.

At the beginning of May, the remaining forces of the Tatar-Mongol army with siege weapons finally approached Kozelsk. In three days the ditch protecting the southern wall was filled in. With the help of battering machines, the Tatars managed to destroy part of the fortress walls and climb the rampart. A bloody battle broke out, but the besieged managed to repulse the attack, because immediately after this the warriors-combatants made a daring foray out of the city. Having cut into the flank of the attackers, they bypassed them from the rear and broke into the Tatar camp.

The warriors managed to destroy some of the siege weapons and kill about 4 thousand people. The arriving reinforcements hardly pushed the Kozelites back to the river, and they were all killed. It is known that during the construction of the railway to Tula at the end of the 19th century, builders discovered an ancient burial place of 267 skulls near Kozelsk.

The Tatar-Mongols, as you know, burned their warriors and did not make burials. According to Academician B.A. Rybakov, this number approximately corresponds to the population of the Russian princely castle of that time and may be the burial of the heads of the very Kozelsk warriors who died in the battle for Kozelsk.

During the heroic foray of three hundred Kozel residents, four Tatar regiments (a tenth of the entire army) were killed and three Tatar colonels (“sons of the prisoner”) were killed. Upon learning of the losses, Batu became furious: some of the killed military leaders were his relatives, others were personal friends. Batu ordered to take the city and not spare any of its defenders: neither the boyars, nor the wives and children of the boyars, nor the young prince.

On May 13, 1238 the city fell. According to legend, the last battle took place at the princely court, in the Kremlin. The young Prince Vasily was hidden in a hole (a narrow pit used to punish princely servants). He could not get out of there, since the corpses of soldiers were piled on top in several rows. By the time the prince was discovered, he had already died.

There is also a legend that some of the residents managed to leave the burning city through an underground passage. After the Tatars left, they buried the killed warriors and the prince, placing the famous Kozelsky Stone Cross on the grave, which became the symbol of the city of Kozelsk. No one knows where this mass grave and underground passage were located.

Batu, wanting to justify his military failure and huge losses to his comrades, endowed Kozelsk with mystical powers. He forbade calling it Kozelsk, but ordered it to be called “Evil City” (Mogu-Bulgusun), which can partly be interpreted as “City of the Devil.” Kozelsk took seven weeks from the conqueror, second only to Kyiv in the duration of resistance.

Kozelsk became the last, very unsuccessful “point” of the winter campaign of 1237-38. The best warriors of the Mongol-Tatar army died near Kozelsk. There is a version that the results of this battle subsequently led to significant disagreements in the camp of the invaders, up to the emergence of opposition to Batu himself, with which he fought in the 1239-1240s.

The stone Kozelsky Cross is the oldest shrine of the city of Kozelsk. Its origin dates back to the pre-Christian era and is associated with the Vyatichi tribes, who worshiped stone idols. This stone used to be just such an idol, depicting a woman - the patroness of the clan. This is evidenced by the anthropomorphic shape of the stone: it depicted a woman raising her hands to Heaven in silent prayer. After the adoption of Christianity, the Vyatichi converted the stone idol into a Cross.

According to legend, after the death of Kozelsk in 1238, the surviving residents, having buried the fallen defenders in a mass grave, placed this Stone Cross on it, symbolizing the unbending spirit of the Russian people. In the twentieth century, the Stone Cross was installed on the Kozelsk Memorial Square.

6. Battle of Kyiv (1240)

After the conquest of the Vladimir and Chernigov principalities, after an attempt to reach Novgorod, after a difficult battle under the walls of Kozelsk, Batu’s completely exhausted troops were forced to return to the steppes to rest and replenish their troops. Only a few months later - in the fall of 1240 - they again launched an attack on Rus' and approached Kyiv.

The Kiev prince understood perfectly well that without external support the city would not withstand the siege. Having appointed his thousand-year-old Dmitry as governor of Kyiv, he went to Hungary, promising the townspeople to bring Hungarian and Polish troops to the aid. During his absence, the people of Kiev began to prepare for the siege. Voivode Dmitry had extensive experience in participating in military raids and defending fortresses. He organized the work of the townspeople to strengthen the city walls and began conducting daily military training with the people's militia. Kiev priests helped him strengthen the fighting spirit of the people of Kyiv.

Inside besieged Kyiv there were up to 50 thousand citizens, as well as cattle and horses. Dmitry was able to organize the flow of water into the city from the Pochayna River, in which Prince Vladimir the Red Sun once baptized the people of Kiev. The townspeople fought the fires that broke out in all parts of the city due to Tatar shelling. All the old people and children were hidden in the caves of Bald Mountain, where the Kyiv Magi lived.

Kiev cavalry reconnaissance closely monitored the movements of the Tatar advanced detachments. At the end of September 1240, the first military skirmishes with Tatar reconnaissance began, and on October 2, according to Ukrainian local historians, the main forces of the Mongol-Tatars, led by Batu, approached the walls of Kyiv. Khan's envoys were sent to the defenders of Kyiv, who demanded the surrender of the city, promising life to its defenders. Remembering the sad fate of Ryazan and other Russian cities, the people of Kiev did not believe a single word of the khan and killed all his ambassadors. The city began to prepare for defense.

In late autumn, the Tatars began an assault on Kyiv along the entire perimeter of its fortress walls. However, in the very first hours of the assault they suffered heavy losses. For about two weeks, the city’s defenders held back the onslaught of Batu’s troops. The defenders waited for the approach of the allied forces led by Prince Danila Galitsky, but the Hungarians and Poles refused to help the Kievans.

By this time, intelligence reported to the khan that Kyiv residents - women, children and old people - were hiding in the caves of Bald Mountain, guarded by a small garrison. Fearing an attack from the rear, Batu ordered their destruction.

While there were weapons and forces, the garrison of Bald Mountain repelled the attacks of enemies, but the Tatars eventually managed to capture the entrances to the caves. However, attempts to penetrate deep into the mountain led to heavy losses in the invaders' camp. Then the Tatars lit huge fires in front of the entrances to the caves, the smoke from which reached underground. Hundreds of Russian people died there, buried alive in stone dungeons.

After this, having scouted out the most vulnerable places in the defense of Kyiv, Batu launched a final assault, during which the walls failed and the barbarians broke into the city. Like the defenders of Ryazan, the people of Kiev fought to the death, defending every house and every street from the enemy. In many places hand-to-hand combat broke out, the Russians defended themselves with knives and flails. Batu often took tired units out of the battle and threw fresh forces into the battle.

It took the Tatars seven days to cover the 700 steps separating them from the breach in the wall to the Tithe Church. Fearing hand-to-hand combat with Russian soldiers, the barbarians began to fire at people from battering guns, just as they once hit Evpatiy Kolovrat’s squad with boulders.

The collapsed walls of the Church of the Tithes buried the last defenders of the city under their rubble. According to the testimony of the Pope, who visited Kyiv in 1246, out of 50 thousand defenders of the city, no more than 2 thousand remained alive...

With the fall of Kiev, the Tatar-Mongol yoke (1237 - 1480) was established in Rus', which slowed down the economic and cultural development of the Russian state for a long time. As a result of the invasion, the largest cities of the country - Vladimir, Suzdal, Kyiv, Tver, Ryazan, Chernigov - were plundered and burned. The lands of only Novgorod and Pskov, as well as the Smolensk, Polotsk and Turov-Pinsk principalities, survived.

Most of the population of the once rich and strong power was destroyed or driven into slavery. In Rus', stone construction in cities practically ceased, and around them lay unplowed fertile lands overgrown with weeds. The economic development of the country was thrown back several centuries - to the wooden plow and shifting agriculture. The surviving peasants began to plow the land among the forests and swamps, which protected them from Mongol raids.

The country's forces were undermined in the unequal struggle against the invasion of barbarians, but the Russian people were able to withstand the horror of the Tatar occupation and continued to resist the semi-wild hordes of steppe nomads, stopping their march on Europe.

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Ryazan border, Voronezh river.
December 1237

In the year 6745. The noble prince Fyodor Yuryevich of Ryazan was killed by the godless Tsar Batu on the river in Voronezh.

The Tale of Nikola Zarazsky

Going to Batu's headquarters on the Voronezh River, Prince Fedor understood the full responsibility of the assignment entrusted to him - the young prince had to not only try to delay the Mongol invasion as long as possible, but also find out more information about the new enemy. In “The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu” it is said this way: “ And he sent his son, Prince Fyodor Yuryevich of Ryazan, to the godless Tsar Batu with great gifts and prayers so that he would not go to war on the Ryazan land" As we see, both the gifts and the pleas were great, that is, Prince Fedor was offered to win at any cost the precious time that his father simply needed to gather regiments and, most importantly, to wait for the approach of the Suzdal people, who promised help and also began to gather troops. And here we observe one interesting point - in the embassy, ​​the author of “The Tale” mentions “ other princes and best warriors". It is difficult to say what kind of princes they were, their names are not even mentioned, and therefore we can proceed from the fact that there was only one prince in the embassy - Fyodor Yuryevich, and his father’s boyars were given to help him. But about " the best warriors“It’s already interesting - it’s quite likely that it was they who were ordered to guard the young prince, on the other hand, God forbid, what happens, what can they do against the entire Mongol army? But if we proceed from the fact that one of the goals of Prince Fyodor’s trip to Batu was to collect information about an enemy unknown to the Ryazan people, then everything falls into place. For who but these " the best warriors“, could evaluate the training and weapons of the Mongol warriors, estimate their numbers, understand the disposition of troops, and notice the strengths and weaknesses of the military organization. It was understood that while the prince and the boyars were engaged in diplomatic negotiations, “ warriors are the best"will do completely different things. It seemed that Yuri Ingvarevich had thought through everything, calculated everything exactly, but the Ryazan prince could not compete in treachery with the eastern ruler. Batu acted in a typical Asian manner, and therefore completely outplayed his Russian opponent.

As soon as the khan found out that an embassy was coming to him and who was heading it, he immediately decided that Prince Fyodor must die - and it was not that the conqueror had any particular hostility towards him. Batu simply realized that the Ryazan prince was probably gathering troops, that he had sent to his neighbors for help, and when this help came, it would be very difficult to cope with the united Russian army. And if he leads his tumens to Rus' now, then what will prevent the united army of the entire Ryazan land from settling in the capital city, expelling the entire non-male population from there, and themselves, relying on the most powerful fortifications, holding the defense until the approach of the Suzdal army? Therefore, the main problem for the khan before the campaign against North-Eastern Rus' was to ensure that the Russian armies entered into battle with him one by one. And Yuri Ingvarevich, sending his son to the Mongol headquarters, gave the khan this chance, because he sent only the Ryazan boyars, and perhaps everything would have gone differently. And so the prince made a mistake, and Batu took advantage of it, since the khan understood perfectly well that if Prince Fedor was killed, then his father would not leave it without consequences - which means there would be a chance to lure the Ryazan army out from behind the walls and give them battle in an open field. And having defeated the united Ryazan army, it will be possible to calmly take all the cities of the principality, since there will be no one to defend them, and then it will be the turn of the Suzdal residents, who will be left alone in front of the entire horde.

Most likely, this is exactly how Batu could have reasoned when the Ryazan embassy approached his headquarters, only Prince Fedor did not yet know that he was no longer a tenant in this world and all his efforts could not change anything. But the prince took the fulfillment of his responsible mission very seriously, and therefore, appearing before the khan, began to shower him with gifts and cajole him with speeches, not suspecting that everything had already been decided. " The godless, deceitful and merciless Tsar Batu accepted the gifts and in his lies feignedly promised not to go to war on the Ryazan land, but only boasted and threatened to make war on the entire Russian land" The author of the “Tale” specifically points out the deceit of the Mongol Khan, who accepted the gifts and even promised not to fight Ryazan, although he had already decided everything for himself long ago and was simply playing with the young prince, like a cat with a mouse. And it is no coincidence that further negotiations became Batu’s open mockery of the Russian embassy: “ And he began to ask the princes of Ryazan for daughters and sisters to come to his bed.”. And this was already an open provocation and mockery, since the khan probably knew how Russian Orthodox princes viewed marriage and that it was difficult to think of a greater insult than he inflicted on Prince Fedor. But Batu did not calm down on this and continued his mockery, this time specifically against Fedor: “ Tsar Batu was cunning and unmerciful, in his unbelief he became inflamed with his lust and said to Prince Fyodor Yuryevich: “ Let me, prince, taste the beauty of your wife ».

As for Prince Fyodor, he had long been barely restraining himself so as not to offend the presumptuous khan with a response, since he understood that he now had a whole principality behind him, for the fate of which he bore full responsibility. But when it came to his beloved wife, the Ryazan prince’s patience ran out - which, in fact, was what Batu wanted. Fyodor Yuryevich was a brave and strong man, he went alone against a bear with a spear, and therefore there was no fear in his heart of the insolent Mongol, whom under other circumstances he would simply have killed to death with one blow of his fist. But the khan's tent was packed with heavily armed guards, and the prince bitterly regretted that he did not have a sword with him, which he would gladly thrust into the fat belly of the Mongol ruler, since such insults are washed away only with blood. And not being able to respond with action to the words of Batu, who was stupefied by his impunity, Prince Fyodor looked into the flat Mongolian face of the khan and said as if he spat: “It is not good for us, Russian princes, to bring our wives to you, the filthy one, for fornication. When you defeat us, take everything for yourself!” - and, turning his back to the Conqueror, who was taken aback by his unheard-of impudence, he walked away from the tent. All the Mongol nobles who were there gasped from unprecedented audacity, the guards started to catch up and finish off the insolent, but the khan stopped them with a wave of his hand: not here! Batu sat red as a beet, painfully experiencing the humiliation to which the Ryazan prince subjected him in front of the entire Mongol elite, and then called the head of his personal guard and gave the order that the daring ambassador be punished with death. Prince Fedor was killed not far from the tent, and along with him the entire Russian embassy died - only the princely pestun Aponitsa managed to hide in the confusion that occurred when the Khan's Turgauds rushed at the unarmed Ryazan residents with spears and swords. " Aponitsa hid himself and wept bitterly, looking at the glorious body of his honest master. And seeing that no one was guarding him, he took his beloved sovereign and buried him secretly" Apparently, this happened when the horde took off and moved north, towards Ryazan, and on the other hand, the Mongols could have deliberately not noticed the escape of the princely pestun - Batu needed the news of what had happened to reach Prince Yuri as quickly as possible faster and prompted him to take rash actions.

* * *

In “The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu” it is clearly stated that he informed the khan about the beauty of the prince’s wife “ one of the Ryazan nobles ", he also mentioned that Princess Eupraxia is a relative of the Byzantine emperor. Eupraxia itself and its fate will be discussed further, but here I would like to note that the Mongol khan had his own people everywhere - it is quite possible that it was this nobleman who informed Batu for what purpose the Ryazan embassy was going to the Mongol headquarters...

“Only smoke, earth and ashes...”

On the near approaches to Ryazan.
December 1237

And he went against the wicked Tsar Batu, and they met him near the borders of Ryazan, and attacked him, and began to fight him firmly and courageously, and the slaughter was evil and terrible.

The story of the ruin of Ryazan by Batu

Killing Prince Fyodor Yuryevich at his headquarters, Batu knew what he was doing - he was almost sure that Prince Yuri would fly into a rage, lose caution and march with an army towards him. It is quite a distance from Ryazan to the Voronezh River, and while Prince Fyodor was traveling to the Khan’s headquarters, and then Aponitsa was getting back, a considerable period of time passed, and all this time the Ryazan prince did not sit idly by, but gathered troops. Squads arrived from Murom, Pronsk, detachments from Pereyaslavl-Ryazan, Belgorod, Rostislavl, Izheslavets, Perevitsk, and militia gathered in villages and villages. Military men from all over the Ryazan land converged on the capital of the principality, Yuri Ingvarevich armed everyone he could, but there was a serious flaw in this - by gathering all his forces into one fist, he left other cities of the principality unprotected. But then the sad news arrived: “ And the whole city cried for a long time. And as soon as the prince had rested from that great crying and sobbing, he began to gather his army and arrange his regiments" From a human point of view, Prince Yuri can be understood, but as a statesman, it is impossible. And the point is not even whether the plan of his attack on the Mongols was bad or good, but the fact that, under the influence of emotions, deciding to oppose Batu only with the Ryazan regiments, he directly violated the agreement with Prince George. Indeed, in the event of his defeat, the Suzdal army remained on the territory of the Ryazan principality alone with the Mongol horde, and since the squad of Prince Roman Kolomensky was not large enough, there was a real threat that the grand ducal army was doomed to defeat. And worst of all, the possibility was created that the Vladimir-Suzdal squads would engage in battle with the Mongols in parts - part at Kolomna under the command of Vsevolod Georgievich and governor Eremey Glebovich, and part under the command of the Grand Duke, but where and when was still unknown . With one successful move - the murder of the Ryazan prince - Batu forced the Russian troops to engage in battle alone and in unfavorable conditions. The Mongol Khan did everything in his power to make life easier for his commanders, and now the whole matter was up to them - the entire success of the campaign against North-Eastern Rus' depended on how the Temniks and Noyons used his gift.

Well, as for Prince Yuri, he obviously believed that he had a chance of success, but it all depended on how quickly he could attack the enemy. It is quite possible that it was Aponitsa who told the prince that the Mongolian tumens stood separately from each other, and Yuri Ingvarevich had the idea of ​​breaking them one by one. True, it is unlikely that Fyodor Yuryevich’s mentor could provide any information about the exact number of Mongol troops; the prince himself, who should have tried to find out all this in detail, was killed, and therefore Yuri Ryazansky, to some extent, acted blindly. The city cried for Prince Fedor for a long time, but his father, obsessed with the thirst for revenge, no, he had no time to shed tears for a long time, he did not even send for Prince Roman to Kolomna, because he wanted to strike the Mongol camps as quickly as possible. But the most surprising thing is that Batu, who, although he expected this blow from the Ryazan regiments, was taken by surprise - everything happened so quickly and unexpectedly. It is difficult to say which of the princes supported this decision of Yuri Ingvarevich and who did not, we know one thing - the united squads of the Ryazan land opposed the steppe inhabitants. It was decided to attack the Mongols in one march from Ryazan, using the terrain conditions and the factor of surprise - it is difficult to say what Prince Yuri would have done if the horde had not rested on the flat terrain, which was closely approached by forests. But everything turned out the way the prince wanted, and therefore the first clash between the Russian regiments and the Mongols in the winter of 1237 was only a matter of time.

* * *

The Ryazan army left the city in the evening - in the last glow of the evening dawn, horse squads poured out in a continuous stream from the dark passage in the gate tower and slowly moved to the southwest. Ryazan banners flew proudly, a forest of spears swayed over the stretched column, and the armor and helmets of the warriors flashed with a bright brilliance in the pre-sunset rays of the sun. Following the horsemen was a foot army - in front, throwing large scarlet shields behind their backs, walked the princely foot soldiers clad in chain mail, and behind them moved the militia, recruited from the cities and villages of the Ryazan land. In sheepskin coats, armed with heavy axes, spears and bows, the men stomped disorganized along the road, and rarely a helmet or chain mail flashed in their ranks. The whole city poured out onto the city ramparts to see off the army, and for a long time the townspeople peered into the distance, even when night enveloped the earth, they continued to stand on the walls, dispelling the darkness of the night with the light of hundreds of torches.

And Prince Yuri led his regiments in such a way as to arrive at the Tatar camps before dawn and give his people a break before the battle, since the battle promised to be long and cruel. The Ryazan patrols, which consisted of local hunters and knew the surroundings like the back of their hand, went far ahead - their task was to remove the enemy guards and allow the Russian army to reach the attack lines without interference. The Mongolian guard posts were slaughtered quickly and skillfully, without unnecessary noise or shouting, and the dead bodies were dragged into the bushes and covered with snow. Having received news that the path ahead was clear, Yuri Ingvarevich led his army along several roads through the forest, ordering that if any of the detachments was the first to reach the forest outskirts, then not to go into the field, but to wait for the rest to approach. The prince saw that he still had enough time, and when the Ryazan squads approached the edge of the forest, he ordered the horsemen to dismount and rest a little before launching the attack. Having driven out into the field, Prince Yuri saw a Mongol camp in the distance - thousands of fires illuminated the dark night sky, a muffled roar spread across the plain. But the Ryazan prince knew from the scouts that behind this camp there was another one, and behind it another, and how many of them there are, only God knows, since the Ryazan army advanced so quickly towards the enemy that Yuri Ingvarevich did not really know how many there were steppe people came to his land. Realizing that dawn would soon come, the prince ordered to leave the forest and attack the enemy.

Trying not to make noise, horse-drawn soldiers slowly rode out from behind the trees, straightening out the ranks; behind them, crushing the snow with their feet, came the foot warriors, whom the foremen and centurions, muffledly swearing, lined up in dense ranks. Having completed the formation, the Ryazan army slowly moved across the field to where, suspecting nothing, the Mongols were dozing in their yurts. The moon sparkled brightly in the sky - it was a sudden wind that dispersed the clouds, and then its sharp gust unfurled the princely banners and banners. And then the Ryazan people were noticed - the night exploded with the roar of Mongolian drums, the steppe inhabitants ran out of yurts and tents, grabbed weapons, jumped on horses and rushed to their hundreds and dozens. Prince Yuri raised his spear and pointed it at the Mongol camp darkening in the depths of the field - the Ryazan army, accelerating its movement, moved forward. The first, gradually gaining momentum, were the princely squads, followed by rows of foot soldiers, bristling with spears and spears. The prince's war horn roared, and the Gridni, spurring their horses, went on the attack - snow flew in different directions from under the horses' hooves, and a steel wave of horsemen rolled towards the same Mongolian wave coming from the camp. The horses of the Russian warriors rushed madly across the field, the Ryazan war trumpets sounded again, and the gridni lowered their spears, aiming at the approaching steppe inhabitants and choosing their opponent. With a clang and roar, two horse avalanches collided on a snow-covered field, hundreds of Mongol horsemen flew out of their saddles, unable to withstand the direct spear blow of the Ryazan warriors, and no less fell to the ground along with their horses, unable to withstand the ramming onslaught of the warriors. Most of the nukers who found themselves on the ground were simply trampled under hooves, and those who survived were finished off by foot warriors, stabbing their adversaries with spears and boot knives. The battle formations of the Mongols scattered, and those who survived began to turn their horses and take a general flight - chasing the enemy, the Ryazan people broke into their encampment. Prince Yuri, however, forbade his soldiers to linger there and, realizing that the key to success lies in the speed of action and the swiftness of the onslaught, he led his warriors further. Someone set fire to several yurts and tents, and a bright flame hit the dark sky, gradually spreading throughout the Mongol camp.

Having withdrawn his troops from the enemy camp, the Ryazan prince again deployed his squads and led them towards the next camp - towards him, under the roar of drums, the Mongol cavalry, which had been formed into battle formations, began to move, which the thousands were able to bring into the field. The Ryazan gridni immediately set their horses into a gallop, hoping to reach the Mongol ranks before the nomads drew their bows. The steppe inhabitants could not resort to their favorite tactics - shoot arrows and flee - because behind them there were yurts, tents and carts with goods. Having drawn their bows, the nukers released arrows, and dozens of warriors flew out of their saddles, while their horses continued to rush forward, dragging behind them the bodies of the riders caught in the stirrups by their feet. The nomads did not have time to fire the second shot, and therefore, tearing sabers and crooked swords from their scabbards, they rushed towards the Ryazanians, hoping to stop their furious onslaught. Faced with the steel formation of the gridneys, the Mongol ranks scattered like a clay pot being hit by a wall, and the nukers themselves scattered like peas in different directions. The Ryazan squads trampled the leading ranks of the Mongol warriors into the snow and, pursuing the fleeing ones, burst into the next encampment. Sweeping away everything in their path, the Ryazan people passed right through it and again found themselves in the field, where they sharply besieged their horses - a cloud of steppe people ready for battle was coming straight towards them, the Khan's temniks recovered from the surprise and now confidently led the battle. The night came to an end, the gloomy December morning arrived, and the Mongol commanders could now see how much they outnumbered the enemy.

But the princes of Ryazan also realized that if they remained standing, they would simply be crushed by the mass, and therefore Prince Yuri raised a battle ax above his head and led his horsemen into a new attack. The warriors' horses were already tired and walked much slower, the spears of the gridneys were broken in previous battles, and therefore there was little chance of overthrowing the Mongols on the move, but the Ryazanians had no other choice. The two armies clashed in hand-to-hand combat - the Russian warriors cut down the steppe inhabitants with swords, beat them with clubs and poles, and the Mongols desperately flogged them with sabers, stabbed them with spears and shot them with bows. For some time the battle was on equal terms, but more and more new detachments approached the steppe inhabitants, and the Russian system wavered, and then moved back - Vsevolod Pronsky, pierced by spears, fell from his horse, and his gridneys began to turn their horses around. But then the wave of the Ryazan army on foot rolled in and covered the Mongols - the brave warriors were lifted onto spears, beaten with iron-bound clubs, and the helmets and armor of the nukers were cut with blows from heavy two-handed axes. With boot knives in their hands, the warriors threw themselves under the Mongol horses, ripped open their bellies and cut off their legs, and the riders themselves were pulled from their saddles and finished off on the ground. Unable to withstand the fierce attack, the nomads turned their horses and ran away - so furious and terrible was the onslaught of the Ryazan foot soldiers - and Prince Yuri felt the taste of victory.

But victory was still far away - on the right and left, without engaging in battle, the Ryazan regiments bypassed the fresh Mongolian tumens, in the depths of the plain the dense rows of approaching cavalry darkened, and Yuri Ingvarevich began to realize that everything could end very badly. His plan to defeat the Mongol horde piece by piece clearly failed - the Ryazan people simply did not have enough strength for this, and therefore it was necessary to think about how to save the Russian army from the approaching defeat. The gray winter sky became cloudy, thick, thick snow fell, and Yuri Ingvarevich decided that in this bad weather he would be able to withdraw his troops to the forest, where the Mongols would not be able to reach them. The Ryazan army gathered into a fist, the princes and governors mounted spare horses to again lead their squads into battle, only this time it was no longer about victory, but about their own salvation. The body of Vsevolod Mikhailovich was laid across the saddle and tied tightly with ropes, hoping to be taken to Pronsk and buried with dignity. Many gridneys, who had lost their horses, joined the ranks of the militia, strengthening the front ranks, and the Ryazan army moved through a blood-stained field littered with the bodies of thousands of fallen soldiers.

However, old Subudai, who led the battle from the Mongol side, was not going to let the Ryazan prince out of the trap into which he had led himself - thousands of horse archers, emerging from behind the snow cover, rained down a real shower of arrows on the Russian army. People fell in dozens on the bloody snow, losses began to grow with catastrophic speed, and the saving forest was not close. The warriors covered themselves with large almond-shaped and round shields, arrows bounced off their helmets and shells, but the militia had a hard time - without chain mail and armor, with homemade shields, they were doomed. Long Mongolian arrows pierced sheepskin coats, pierced fur hats, split wooden shields covered with skins - but the Ryazan people stubbornly continued to walk towards the forest, covering their path with the bodies of the fallen. Seeing that the enemy could not be broken by the attacks of the horse archers, Subudai changed tactics - the Mongol horsemen disappeared behind a curtain of snow, and the ground began to resound with the stomping of the heavy cavalry going on the attack. The Ryazan warriors closed ranks more closely, and their formation instantly bristled with horns and spears - the Mongols struck at once and from all sides. In a terrible hand-to-hand battle, the Russians threw back the Mongol warriors, but a new wave of steppe inhabitants was replacing the battered thousands, and behind it hundreds of new fresh fighters were preparing to join the battle. The battle did not calm down for a minute, the gridneys and militias piled up a whole shaft of dead people and horses in front of the formation, but the Russian warriors became fewer and fewer, and those who were still fighting fell off their feet from fatigue. Under the blows of arrows and spears, Yuri Muromsky fell from the saddle onto the trampled snow, Oleg the Red, who was exhausted from numerous wounds, was pulled out of the saddle with a lasso and dragged into the prison, and Prince Yuri, having lost his horse, stood in the front row and was hacked with a sword like a simple warrior . Perhaps in these last minutes of his life he realized what a terrible mistake he had made by deciding to fight Batu in an open field alone, without the Suzdal regiments. That by this act he doomed to death not only himself, his princely relatives and the Ryazan army, but his entire land, his beloved city and all of North-Eastern Rus', since the Vladimir squads would fight the horde alone. And when the Mongols finally managed to destroy the Ryazan system and break the battle into dozens of separate battles and clashes, it was all over for Yuri Igorevich. Under the blows of the crooked swords of the nukers, the Ryazan prince fell on the battlefield, and the princely banner fell into the snow and was trampled under the hooves of the horses of the triumphant victors. The battle was over, the Mongols pursued and cut down the few who tried to escape in the forest, and numerous horsemen were already riding across the battlefield, looking out for the wounded Ryazan warriors and finishing them off with blows from their spears. After this massacre, Ryazan was doomed.

* * *

When describing the fighting on the approaches to Ryazan, my main source was “The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu,” and here’s why. The fact is that the chronicle news about the events that preceded the capture of the city is rather meager and contradictory. The Laurentian Chronicle is silent about the battle, and, based on its text, it turns out that Prince Yuri died during the storming of the city along with his entire family, and it was as if the field battle with the Mongols never happened. The messages in the Ipatiev Chronicle are even more confused and unclear, but this is quite understandable, since the events that interest us were described in the Galicia-Volyn Chronicle, which was one of the sections of this code. The Galician chronicler clearly did not have all the information about the Ryazan tragedy, and he had a negative attitude towards the princes of North-Eastern Rus'. Again, his following message about the Mongol invasion of the Ryazan borders is very incomprehensible: “ Their first invasion was on the Ryazan land, and they took the city of Ryazan by storm, lured out Prince Yuri by deception and brought him to Pronsk, because his princess was in Pronsk at that time. The princess was lured out by deception, and Prince Yuri and his princess were killed" And here a logical question arises - where did the Mongols lure out Prince Yuri in this case, if by this time they had taken Ryazan by storm? Did he go into the forests and hide there like a partisan? And what was the princess doing in Pronsk at this terrible time, since Ryazan was the capital, and its fortifications were much more powerful! In addition, the Laurentian Chronicle clearly states that Pronsk was taken first, and then Ryazan: “ began to conquer the Ryazan land, and captured it as far as Pronsk, and took the entire Ryazan principality" But the key, in my opinion, is the message of the Tver Chronicle: “ Prince Yuri Ryazansky locked himself in the city with the residents, and Prince Roman retreated to Kolomna with his people. And the Tatars took the city by storm on December twenty-first, in memory of the holy martyr Ulyana, and killed Prince Yuri Ingvarevich and his princess..." What is especially interesting here is the moment where the author focuses on who exactly the Ryazan prince locked himself in the city with - with the residents, and not with the army, and also the fact that the Kolomna squad did not participate in the defense of the capital of the principality. And this could only happen in one case - if the Ryazan army was destroyed by the Mongols, and Prince Roman’s regiment did not take part in this battle, since it was he who would soon, together with the Suzdal regiments, enter the battle with the invaders near Kolomna. It is unlikely that Batu’s commanders would have allowed Roman Ingvarevich to leave the battlefield, much less take combat-ready troops with him, because it is very far to go to Kolomna, and using their numerical advantage and superior maneuverability, the steppe inhabitants could destroy this detachment on the march. This is also confirmed by the Novgorod Chronicle, which clearly states that Ryazan fought on its own, and « Prince Roman Ingvarevich began to fight against them(Mongols) with my people ».

What is characteristic is that in “The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu” no such inconsistencies are observed, and each action lends itself to a logical explanation - the Mongol khan, by killing his son, provoked the Ryazan prince into battle in unfavorable conditions, and by destroying the Ryazan army in an open field, at the same time destroyed the planned military alliance between Ryazan and Vladimir-Suzdal. Prince Roman Ingvarevich was not named among the participants in the battle, but as for Gleb Kolomensky, mentioned by the author of the Tale, as noted by Academician D.S. Likhachev, " the latter is not mentioned in all lists and is not known from the chronicle " By the way, it is in the princely names that the author creates confusion - instead of the Murom Prince Yuri, he calls his father David, who died in 1228, and Prince Oleg the Red, not his brother, as in the "Tale", but the nephew of Prince Yuri, who ended up in captured by Batu, declared executed by order of the khan. In fact, Oleg was in captivity until 1252, returned to his principality and died in March 1258, being the prince of Ryazan. Carefully analyzing the story, D.S. Likhachev made a very interesting observation: “ The author had at his disposal the Ryazan Chronicle, contemporary with the events, very likely brief, without mentioning the names of the defenders of Ryazan. Fragments of this particular chronicle have reached us as part of the First Novgorod Chronicle. That is why there are literal coincidences between the story of the First Novgorod Chronicle about the events of Batu’s invasion and the “Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan”. Subsequently, this chronicle was lost in Ryazan itself." And since the names of the princes were not indicated in the chronicle, and the author did not have accurate information about them, that very confusion arose.

But the whole point is that another source that the nameless author used when writing his work were folk tales and local legends. Academician Likhachev believed that the “Tale” itself was compiled in the first half of the 14th century, when all the legends concerning the Mongol invasion were widely known. " It was they who not only gave the author of the “Tale” basic information, but also determined the artistic form of the “Tale”, giving it local flavor and depth of mood, selecting artistic means of expression" Therefore, in my opinion, it is the combination of folk legends together with information from the official chronicle that makes “The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu” the most important source for the study of the disaster that occurred in the winter of 1237 on Ryazan soil.

Now, as for the battle itself, there is no doubt that it was the Ryazan regiments that attacked the Mongols; in the “Tale” about the actions of Prince Yuri it is clearly stated: “And went against the wicked Tsar Batu, and met him near the borders of Ryazan, and attacked him.” In my opinion, there is no point in interpreting the “Ryazan borders” as if the battle took place on the Voronezh River, where they sometimes try to place it. Yes, Batu’s headquarters was on the Voronezh River, but nothing more, Prince Yuri had no need to lead his regiments such a distance; in the open steppe, the Mongols would simply crush the Ryazan people and not notice. Most likely, a certain confusion is caused by the message of the Tver Chronicle - “ The Ryazan princes, Yuri Ingvarevich, and his brothers Oleg and Roman Ingvarevich, and the Murom princes, and the Pronsky princes decided to fight them, not allowing them into their land. They went out against the Tatars to Voronezh and answered Batu’s ambassadors this way: “When we are all no longer alive, then all this will be yours.”" Here the author lumped everything into a heap - the embassy to the Voronezh River of Prince Fyodor and his response to Batu, the meeting of the Ryazan princes and the gathering of the united army, the campaign to meet the Mongols and... But about the most important thing - about the battle - not a word, as if it never happened! Based on the text, it turns out that, having gathered regiments from all over the Ryazan land, its princes led them to the Voronezh River, once again insulted the Mongol Khan, and then dispersed to their own destinies. And after that they sent messengers to Prince George asking for help! It's just some kind of absurdity. If you follow the “Tale”, then everything falls into place, logic and meaning are visible in all actions - the Ryazan borders can be understood in such a way that the battle took place not far from the city. And since Yuri Ingvarevich himself attacked the enemy, and even inflicted heavy losses on him: “ Many strong Batyev regiments fell", then, most likely, he managed to take the enemy by surprise. And this was possible only in one case - if Prince Yuri managed to secretly bring up and deploy his troops, which was almost impossible to do in the steppe. And if so, then the action itself should have taken place where there are forests, and such a place really did exist - large forested areas were located south of Ryazan, 16–19 km from the city, where they are now, only in the 13th century the area should have been much larger.

Read an excerpt from “The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu”

“In the year 6745 (from the Creation of the World)…. The godless Tsar Batu came to the Russian land with many Tatar warriors and stood on the river in Voronezh near the land of Ryazan. And he sent unlucky ambassadors to Ryazan to Grand Duke Yuri Ingvarevich (Igorevich) of Ryazan, demanding from him a tenth share in everything: in princes, and in all sorts of people, and in the rest. And Grand Duke Yuri Ingvarevich of Ryazan heard about the invasion of the godless Tsar Batu, and immediately sent to the city of Vladimir to the faithful Grand Duke Georgy Vsevolodovich of Vladimir, asking him for help against the godless Tsar Batu or to go against him himself. Grand Duke Georgy Vsevolodovich Vladimirsky did not go himself and did not send help, planning to fight Batu alone. And Grand Duke Yuri Ingvarevich of Ryazansky heard that there was no help for him from Grand Duke Georgy Vsevolodovich of Vladimir, and immediately sent for his brothers: for Prince David Ingvarevich of Murom, and for Prince Gleb Ingvarevich Kolomensky, and for Prince Oleg the Red, and for Vsevolod Pronsky, and for other princes. And they began to hold advice on how to satisfy the wicked with gifts. And he sent his son, Prince Fyodor Yuryevich of Ryazan, to the godless Tsar Batu with great gifts and prayers so that he would not go to war on the Ryazan land. And Prince Fyodor Yuryevich came to the river in Voronezh to Tsar Batu, and brought him gifts, and prayed to the Tsar not to fight the Ryazan land. The godless, deceitful and merciless Tsar Batu accepted the gifts and in his lies feignedly promised not to go to war on the Ryazan land. But he boasted and threatened to fight the entire Russian land. And he began to ask the princes of Ryazan for daughters and sisters to come to his bed. And one of the Ryazan nobles, out of envy, reported to the godless Tsar Batu that Prince Fyodor Yuryevich of Ryazan had a princess from the royal family and that she was more beautiful than anyone else in her physical beauty. Tsar Batu was cunning and unmerciful in his unbelief, became inflamed in his lust and said to Prince Fyodor Yuryevich: “Let me, prince, taste the beauty of your wife.” The noble Prince Fyodor Yuryevich Ryazansky laughed and answered the Tsar: “It is not right for us Christians to bring our wives to you, the wicked Tsar, for fornication. When you defeat us, then you will own our wives.” The godless Tsar Batu was furious and offended and immediately ordered the death of the faithful Prince Fyodor Yuryevich, and his body was to be thrown to be torn to pieces by animals and birds, and he killed other princes and the best warriors...”

Using the passage, choose three correct statements from the list given. Write down the numbers under which they are indicated in your answer.

1) the invasion of Rus' by Batu’s troops began in the winter of 1237.

2) soon after the death of Ryazan, the cities of the Vladimir-Suzdal principality were attacked by Batu’s troops

3) after the defeat of Ryazan, the army of the Mongol-Tatars was attacked by the squad of the Ryazan boyar Evpatiy Kolovrat

4) moving through the Chernigov principality, a detachment of Mongol-Tatars immediately captured and plundered Kozelsk

6) the defenders of Novgorod managed to withstand the assault of the city by Batu’s troops

Explanation.

1) the invasion of Rus' by Batu’s troops began in the winter of 1237 - YES, that’s right, we are talking about Khan Batu’s campaign against Rus', which began in December 1237 with an attack on the Ryazan land.

2) soon after the destruction of Ryazan, the cities of the Vladimir-Suzdal principality were attacked by Batu’s troops - YES, that’s right, the Vladimir-Suzdal principality was devastated.

3) after the defeat of Ryazan, the army of the Mongol-Tatars was attacked by the squad of the Ryazan boyar Evpatiy Kolovrat - YES, that’s right, the hero of the Ryazan land was Evpatiy Kolovrat.

4) moving through the Chernigov principality, a detachment of Mongol-Tatars immediately captured and plundered Kozelsk - NO, incorrect, Kozelsk was devastated in 1238, and the Chernigov principality was devastated in 1239.

6) the defenders of Novgorod managed to withstand the assault of the city by Batu’s troops - NO, incorrect, the Mongols did not reach Novgorod 100 versts.

Battle of Kulikovo and the birth of Muscovite Rus' Shirokorad Alexander Borisovich

Chapter 3 THE DEATH OF RYAZAN

Chapter 3 THE DEATH OF RYAZAN

“The godless Tsar Batu came to the Russian land with many Tatar warriors and stood on the river in Voronezh near the land of Ryazan. And he sent unlucky ambassadors to Ryazan to Grand Duke Yuri Ingorevich of Ryazan, demanding from him a tenth share in everything: in princes, and in all sorts of people, and in the rest. And Grand Duke Yuri Ingorevich Ryazansky heard about the invasion of the godless Tsar Batu, and immediately sent to the city of Vladimir to the noble Grand Duke Georgy Vsevolodovich of Vladimir, asking him for help against the godless Tsar Batu or to go against him himself. Grand Duke Georgy Vsevolodovich Vladimirsky did not go himself and did not send help, planning to fight Batu alone. And Grand Duke Yuri Ingorevich Ryazansky heard that there was no help for him from Grand Duke Georgy Vsevolodovich of Vladimir, and immediately sent for his brothers: for Prince Davad Ingorevich of Murom, and for Prince Gleb Ingorevich Kolomensky, and for Prince Oleg the Red, and for Vsevolod Pronsky, and for other princes. And they began to hold advice on how to satisfy the wicked with gifts. And he sent his son, Prince Fyodor Yuryevich of Ryazan, to the godless Tsar Batu with great gifts and prayers so that he would not go to war on the Ryazan land. And Prince Fyodor Yuryevich came to the river in Voronezh to Tsar Batu, and brought him gifts, and prayed to the Tsar not to fight the Ryazan land. The godless, deceitful and merciless Tsar Batu accepted the gifts and in his lies feignedly promised not to go to war on the Ryazan land. But he boasted and threatened to fight the entire Russian land. And he began to ask the princes of Ryazan for daughters and sisters to come to his bed. And one of the Ryazan nobles, out of envy, reported to the godless Tsar Batu that Prince Fyodor Yuryevich of Ryazan had a princess from the royal family and that she was the most beautiful of all in her bodily beauty. Tsar Batu was cunning and unmerciful in his unbelief, became inflamed in his lust and said to Prince Fyodor Yuryevich: “Let me, prince, taste the beauty of your wife.” The noble Prince Fyodor Yuryevich Ryazansky laughed and answered the Tsar: “It is not right for us Christians to bring our wives to you, the wicked Tsar, for fornication. When you defeat us, then you will own our wives.” The godless Tsar Batu was furious and offended and immediately ordered the death of the faithful Prince Fyodor Yuryevich, and ordered his body to be thrown to be torn to pieces by animals and birds, and he killed other princes and the best warriors.

But one of the mentors of Prince Fyodor Yuryevich, named Aponitsa, survived and wept bitterly, looking at the glorious body of his honest master; and seeing that no one was guarding him, he took his beloved sovereign and buried him secretly. And he hurried to the faithful princess Eupraxia, and told her how the wicked Tsar Batu killed the faithful prince Fyodor Yuryevich.

The blessed princess Eupraxia was standing at that time in her lofty mansion and holding her beloved child, Prince Ivan Fedorovich, and when she heard these deadly words, filled with grief, she rushed from her lofty mansion with her son Prince Ivan straight to the ground and crashed to death..."

This is what “The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu” says.

The Ryazan princes in the 20s and 30s of the 13th century managed to quarrel with both the Grand Duke of Vladimir and the Prince of Chernigov. In addition, the neighboring Russian princes did not appreciate the threat of the Tatar invasion and at first perceived it only as a raid on Ryazan.

As a result, only the Ryazan army came out against the Tatars under the command of the Ryazan prince Yuri Igorevich. The battle took place near the Voronezh River, “... it was an evil and terrible slaughter. Many strong Batyev regiments fell. And Tsar Batu saw that the Ryazan force was fighting hard and courageously, and he was afraid. But who can stand against the wrath of God! Batu’s forces were great and irresistible; one Ryazan man fought with a thousand, and two – with ten thousand.”

The Ryazan army was defeated. In the battle, Yuri Igorevich and his relatives fell - nephews Davyd (the appanage prince of Murom) and Gleb (the appanage prince of Kolomna) Ingvarevich and his great-nephew Vsevolod Mikhailovich (the appanage prince of Pron). According to the “Tale...” the entire army also died.

On December 16, 1237, the Tatars besieged Ryazan. It was relatively well fortified. The city, covering an area of ​​about 10 hectares, was built on steep hills. The city rampart, even after standing for such a long time (since the 12th century), was a powerful structure up to 10 m high and more than 20 m wide at the base. A ditch stretched along the entire length of the rampart, reaching great depths in some places. In a number of places the shaft was interrupted - there were fortress gates. When excavating the rampart, it turned out that it was not only a grandiose embankment, but also a complex defensive structure made of earth and wooden fortress walls. In the upper part of the shaft, the remains of a solid wooden wall made of longitudinally placed logs tied with transverse logs were discovered. In addition, there were several inner city ramparts. There were at least three large stone churches in the city.

“Tsar Batu... besieged the city, and fought relentlessly for five days. Batya’s army changed, and the townspeople constantly fought. And many townspeople were killed, and others were wounded, and others were exhausted from great labors. And on the sixth day, early in the morning, the wicked went to the city - some with lights, others with vices, and others with countless stairs - and took the city of Ryazan in the month of December on the twenty-first day. And they came to the cathedral church of the Most Holy Theotokos, and Grand Duchess Agrippina, the mother of the Grand Duke, with her daughters-in-law and other princesses, they flogged them with swords, and they betrayed the bishop and priests to fire - they burned them in the holy church, and many others fell from weapons. And in the city many people, both wives and children, were cut with swords... And the temples of God were destroyed and a lot of blood was shed in the holy altars. And not a single living person remained in the city: they all died and drank the single cup of death. There was no one moaning or crying here - no father and mother about their children, no children about their father and mother, no brother about their brother, no relatives about their relatives, but they all lay dead together. And all this happened for our sins.”

Now a number of historians are inclined to see exaggerations in the “Tale...”. However, archaeological excavations confirm the destruction of the vast majority of the townspeople.

Here is what archaeologist V.P. Darkevich writes: “Our expedition carried out systematic excavations of mass graves of victims of the Mongol invasion in 1977-1979. on the hem near the Oka and near the former estate house of the Sterligovs near the southern outskirts of the village of Fatyanovka.

A study of anthropological materials showed: of the 143 opened burials, the majority belong to men aged 30 to 40 years and women from 30 to 35 years. There are many children's burials, from infants to 6-10 years old. These are the Ryazan people, whom the conquerors exterminated without exception, many after the capture of the city. The boys, girls and young women who survived were probably divided among the warriors. The skeleton of a pregnant woman was found; the murdered man was clutching a small child to his chest. Some of the skeletons had broken skulls, the bones bore traces of saber blows, and their hands were severed. Many individual skulls. Arrowheads stuck in the bones.

Residents of cities who showed stubborn resistance faced brutal reprisals. With the exception of artisans and those enslaved, the rest of the prisoners were hacked to death with an ax or double-edged ax. Mass executions took place methodically and cold-bloodedly: the condemned were divided among the centurions, and the same ones instructed each slave to kill at least ten people. According to the stories of chroniclers, after the fall of Ryazan, men, women and children, monks, nuns and priests were destroyed by fire and sword, crucified, and struck with arrows. The heads of the prisoners were cut off: during the excavations by A.V. Selivanov of the Spassky Cathedral discovered clusters of 27 and 70 skulls, some with traces of blows from sharp weapons.”

Some time after the capture of Ryazan, the Ryazan prince Ingvar Ingvarevich arrived in the destroyed city, who during the invasion was in Chernigov with Prince Mikhail Vsevolodovich. As it is said in the “Tale...”: “Prince Ingvar Ingvarevich saw the great final destruction for our sins and cried out pitifully, like a trumpet calling to the army, like a sweet sounding organ. And from that great cry and terrible cry he fell to the ground as if dead.”

Ingvar Ingvarevich gathered the surviving surrounding residents and buried the dead (or at least part of them). Excavations confirm the “Tale...”: “In the mass graves of Ryazan, the dead were buried without coffins, in common pits up to 1 m deep, and the frozen ground was heated with fires. They were laid down according to Christian rites - with their heads to the west, with their hands folded on their chests. The skeletons lie in rows, close to each other, in some places in two or three tiers.”

Some historians believe that Ingvar Ingvarevich restored Ryazan. They justified this with the same “Tale...”: “The blessed Prince Ingvar Ingvarevich, named Kozma in holy baptism, sat down on the table of his father Ingvar Svyatoslavich. And he renovated the land of Ryazan, and erected churches, and built monasteries, and comforted the strangers, and gathered people.”

But the “Tale...” speaks not about the city, but about the land of Ryazan. Archaeologists have clearly proven that Ryazan was no longer restored, and no cultural layer was found after 1237. Only in one part of the city were the remains of 17th-century estates found. The Ryazan prince made the city of Pereyaslavl Ryazan his capital, which from the middle of the 14th century began to be called Ryazan.

The “Tale...” tells that the Russian boyar Evpatiy Kolovrat, who was in Chernigov with Prince Ingvar Ingvarevich, went to the aid of Ryazan with a “small squad”. “And he rushed to the city of Ryazan, and saw the city devastated, the sovereigns killed and many people killed: some were killed and flogged, others were burned, and others were drowned in the river. And Evpatiy cried out in the grief of his soul, burning in his heart. And he gathered a small squad - one thousand seven hundred people, whom God preserved outside the city. And they chased after the godless king, and barely caught up with him in the land of Suzdal, and suddenly attacked the Batyev camps. And they began to flog without mercy, and all the Tatar regiments were mixed up. And the Tatars looked like they were drunk or crazy. And Evpatiy beat them so mercilessly that their swords became dull, and he took Tatar swords and cut them with them. It seemed to the Tatars that the dead had risen. Evpatiy, driving right through the strong Tatar regiments, beat them immediately. And he rode among the Tatar regiments so bravely and courageously that the Tsar himself was afraid.”

Tsar Batu “sent his Shurich Khostovrul to Evpatiy, and with him strong Tatar regiments. Khostovrul boasted to the king and promised to bring Evpatiy alive to the king. And strong Tatar regiments surrounded Evpatiy, trying to take him alive. And Khostovrul moved in with Evpatiy. Evpatiy was a giant of force and cut Khostovrul in half to the saddle. And he began to flog the Tatar force, and beat many famous heroes of the Batyevs, cut some in half, and cut others to the saddle. And the Tatars became afraid, seeing what a strong giant Evpatiy was. And they brought on him many vices, and began to beat him with countless vices, and barely killed him. And they brought his body to King Batu. Tsar Batu sent for the Murzas, and the princes, and the Sanchakbes, and everyone began to marvel at the courage, and the strength, and the courage of the Ryazan army. And they said to the king: “We have been with many kings, in many lands, in many battles, but we have never seen such daredevils and spirited men, and our fathers did not tell us. These are winged people, they do not know death, and so strong and courageously, riding on horses, they fight - one with a thousand, and two with darkness. Not one of them will leave the massacre alive.” And Tsar Batu said, looking at Evpatievo’s body: “O Kolovrat Evpatie! You treated me well with your small retinue, and you beat many heroes of my strong horde, and defeated many regiments. If such a one served with me, I would keep him close to my heart.” And he gave Evpatiy’s body to the remaining people from his squad, who were captured in the battle. And King Batu ordered to let them go and not harm them in any way.”

The Tatars destroyed not only Ryazan, but also ruined the entire principality. They took Pronsk, and Prince Oleg Ingvarevich Krasny was captured by the Tatars. The author of “The Tale...” claims that in Pronsk, Ingvar Ingvarevich collected “the dissected parts of the body of his brother... Oleg Ingvarevich.” But this is not true. The Tatars held Prince Oleg captive until the death of the Ryazan prince Ingvar Ingvarevich in 1252, and only then released him to Rus'. Oleg Ingvarevich died in December 1258 and was buried in Pereyaslavl-Ryazan in the Church of the Holy Savior.

The Tatars literally wiped the city of Belgorod-Ryazan off the face of the earth. It was never restored again, and now even its exact location is unknown. Tula historians identify it with a settlement near the village of Beloroditsa on the Polosna River, 16 km from the modern city of Veneva.

The Ryazan city of Voronezh also perished. For several centuries the ruins of the city stood deserted, and only in 1586 a fort was built in its place to protect against the attacks of the Crimean Tatars.

Thanks to the Tatars, the rather famous city of Dedo-Slavl also disappeared. A number of historians identify it with a settlement near the village of Dedilovo on the right bank of the Shat River.

However, historians and archaeologists cannot identify the overwhelming majority of dozens of cities (fortifications) destroyed by the Tatars in 1237-1238, both in the Ryazan region and throughout Rus'. These cities remain nameless. They are united only by traces of a fire, mass graves without phobes, or even simply chaotically lying remains of people with traces of violent death, children and adults who hid in basements, stoves and other shelters and found their death there.

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THE TALE OF THE RUIN OF RYAZAN BY BATY

In 6745 (1237), twelve years after the miraculous image was brought from Korsun, the godless Tsar Batu came to the Russian land with many Tatar warriors and camped on the river in Voronezh, near the Ryazan land. And he sent ambassadors to Ryazan to Grand Duke Yuri Ingorevich of Ryazan without benefit to the cause, asking for tithes in everything: in princes, and in people of all classes, and in everything.

And Grand Duke Yuri Ingorevich Ryazansky heard about the arrival of the godless Tsar Batu, and quickly sent to the city of Vladimir to the faithful Grand Duke Georgy Vsevolodovich of Vladimir, asking him either for help with soldiers against the godless Tsar Batu, or for him to bring troops himself. The Great Prince Georgy Vsevolodovich of Vladimir did not lead the army himself, nor did he send any soldiers to help, wanting to fight Batu himself, alone.

And Grand Duke Yuri Ingorevich Ryazansky found out that there was no help from Grand Duke Georgy Vsevolodovich Vladimirsky, and quickly sent for his brothers: Prince Davyd Ingorevich Muromsky, and Prince Gleb Ingorevich Kolomensky, and Oleg the Red, and Vsevolod Pronsky and others princes. And they began to consult and decided that the wicked should be satisfied with gifts.

And he sent<князь Юрий>his son, Prince Fyodor Yuryevich Ryazansky, to the godless Tsar Batu with gifts and great pleas not to fight the Ryazan land. Prince Fyodor Yuryevich came to the Voronezh River to Tsar Batu and brought him gifts and prayed to the Tsar not to fight the Ryazan land. The godless Tsar Batu, being deceitful and unmerciful, accepted the gifts and insincerely promised not to go to war on the Ryazan land. And he threatened and boasted about fighting the Russian land.

And he began to ask the Ryazan princes for a daughter or sister on his bed. And one of the Ryazan nobles, out of envy, whispered to the godless Tsar Batu that Prince Fyodor Yuryevich Ryazansky had a beautiful princess of the royal family. Tsar Batu, crafty and unmerciful in his paganism, overwhelmed by carnal passion, said to Prince Fyodor Yuryevich: “Let me, prince, know the beauty of your wife!” The noble Prince Fyodor Yuryevich Ryazansky laughed and said to the Tsar: “It is not right for us Christians to bring our women to you, the wicked Tsar, for fornication - when you defeat us, then you will have power over our women.”

The godless Tsar Batu was furious and offended and immediately ordered the death of the faithful Prince Fyodor Yuryevich, and ordered his body to be thrown to animals and birds to be torn to pieces, and he killed other princes and ambassadorial soldiers.

And one of the uncles of Prince Fyodor Yuryevich, named Aponitsa, was saved, and looking at the blessed body, worthy of the honors of his master, and seeing him abandoned, he wept bitterly, and took his beloved sovereign and buried him secretly.

And he hurried to the faithful princess Eupraxia and told her how the wicked Tsar Batu killed the faithful prince Fyodor Yuryevich. Blessed Princess Eupraxia<тогда>stood in her lofty mansion and held<на руках>his beloved child of Prince Ivan Fedorovich. And having heard such deadly words, full of grief, she rushed from her lofty tower with her son, Prince Ivan, to the ground and fell to her death.

And Grand Duke Yuri Ingorevich heard about the murder of his beloved son Prince Fyodor, other princes, many ambassadorial people killed by order of the godless king, and began to cry, both with the Grand Duchess, and with other princesses, and with his brothers. And the whole city cried for a long time, and barely came to their senses from that great crying and sobbing.

And he began to gather an army and arrange regiments. Grand Duke Yuri Ingorevich, seeing his brothers, and boyars, and governors, gallantly and courageously prancing<верхом>, raised his hands to the sky and said with tears: “Protect us from our enemies, O God, and deliver us from those who rise up against us, and save us from the host of the wicked and from the multitude of those who create iniquity. May their path be dark and slippery!”

And he said to his brothers: “O my lords and brothers! If we have accepted good from the hand of the Lord, will we not also endure evil? It is better for us to achieve eternal life by death than to be in the power of the pagans. And I, your brother, before you, will drink the cup of death for the saints of God’s church, and for the Christian faith, and for the fatherland of our ancestor Igor Svyatoslavich!”

And he went to church - to the Church of the Glorious Dormition of the Most Holy Lady Theotokos. And he cried a lot and prayed before the image of the Most Pure Mother of God, and the great wonderworker Nikola, and his relatives Boris and Gleb. And he performed the rite of farewell to the Grand Duchess Agrippina Rostislavovna and received a blessing from the bishop and from the entire sacred cathedral.

And he went out against the wicked Tsar Batu and met him near the borders of Ryazan. And he attacked Batu, and began to fight with tenacity and courage. And the slaughter was cruel and terrible, and many soldiers of Batu’s strong regiments fell. And King Batu saw that the Ryazan army was fighting selflessly and courageously, and he was afraid. Who can resist the wrath of God? And Batu has a great many troops: one<рязанец>fights with a thousand, and two fights with darkness. The great prince saw death<в бою>his brother Davyd Ingorevich and exclaimed: “Oh, my dear brothers! Prince Davyd, our brother, drank the cup of death before us, but don’t we drink this cup?!” They changed horses and began to fight diligently, fighting with many strong Batyev regiments, fighting bravely and courageously, so that all the Tatar troops marveled at the firmness and courage of the Ryazan army. And they were barely defeated by the strong Tatar regiments.

Here the noble prince great Georgy Ingorevich, his brother Prince Davyd Ingorevich of Murom, his brother Prince Gleb Ingorevich Kolomensky, their brother Vsevolod Pronsky and many Ryazan princes and courageous commanders, and the army - the daredevils and frolics of Ryazan - were killed. They all died at the same time, and they all drank the same cup of death. Not one of them came back, but they all died together. And God sent all this for our sins.

And Prince Oleg Ingorevich was captured barely alive.

The king, seeing the death of many of his regiments and many of the Tatar warriors killed, began to greatly grieve and be horrified. And he began to fight the Ryazan land, ordering to beat, and flog, and burn without mercy. He destroyed the city of Pronsk, the city of Bel, and Izheslavets to the ground and killed all the people without mercy. And Christian blood flowed like a full-flowing river because of our sins.

Tsar Batu, seeing Prince Oleg Ingorevich, so beautiful and brave, exhausted from serious wounds, wanted to heal him from those wounds and persuade him to his faith. Prince Oleg Ingorevich reproached Tsar Batu and called him godless and an enemy of Christians. The accursed Batu breathed the fire of his vile heart and ordered that Oleg be cut into pieces with knives. This Oleg, the second first martyr Stephen, accepted the crown of his suffering from the all-merciful God and drank the cup of death with his brothers equally.

The accursed Tsar Batu began to fight the Ryazan land and went to the city of Ryazan. And they surrounded the city and began to fight for five days without retreating. The warriors of Batyev's troops changed and rested, and the townspeople fought continuously. And many of the townspeople were killed, and others were wounded, and others were exhausted from the long battle.

And on the sixth day, early in the morning, the pagans came to the city, some with torches, and others with battering guns, and others with many ladders. And they took the city of Ryazan in December in 21 days. And they came to the cathedral church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the Grand Duchess Agrippina, the mother of the Grand Duke, and her daughters-in-law, and other princesses, were cut to pieces with swords, and the bishop and clergy were put on fire - they were burned in the holy church; and many others fell from weapons, and in the city many people, both with their wives and children, were cut down with swords, others were drowned in the river. And the priests and monks were chopped down to the last. And they burned the entire city, and seized all the treasures of the famous gold-smithing skill, and the wealth of the Ryazan sovereigns and their relatives in Chernigov and Kyiv. And they destroyed the temples of God and shed a lot of blood in the holy altars.

And not a single living person remained in the city; everyone died at the same time and they all drank the same cup of death. There was no one left there moaning or crying: no father and mother by children, no child by father and mother, no brother by brother, no relatives, but they all lay dead together. And all this happened for our sins!

The godless Tsar Batu, seeing the great Christian bloodshed, became even more enraged and embittered. And he went to the cities of Suzdal and Vladimir, wanting to captivate the Russian land, and eradicate the Christian faith, and destroy the churches of God to the ground.

And one of the Ryazan nobles named Evpatiy Kolovrat was at that time in Chernigov together with Prince Ingvar Ingorevich. And he heard about the invasion of Tsar Batu, loyal to evil, and left Chernigov with a small squad, and rushed quickly. And he came to the land of Ryazan and saw it devastated: cities were destroyed, churches were burned, people were killed.

And he rushed to the city of Ryazan and saw that the city was devastated, the sovereigns were killed and many people were killed: some were killed with a sword, others were burned, others were drowned in the river. Evpatiy cried out in the sorrow of his soul and with his heart burning. And he gathered a small squad - one thousand seven hundred people who were preserved by God outside the city.

And they rushed after the godless king, and were barely able to catch up with him in the Suzdal land. And they suddenly attacked Batu’s resting army, and began to flog without mercy, and brought confusion to all the Tatar regiments. The Tatars looked like they were drunk or mad. Evpatiy fought so mercilessly that his swords became dull, and he snatched<он мечи>Tatar, and chopped with them. The Tatars thought that the dead had risen! Evpatiy, at full gallop, fought with strong regiments and beat them mercilessly. And he fought the Tatar troops so bravely and courageously that the king himself was afraid.

And the Tatars barely managed to capture five seriously wounded soldiers. And they were brought to King Batu. Tsar Batu began to ask: “What faith and what land are you? And why did they do so much harm to me?” They answered: “We are of Christian faith, servants of Grand Duke Yuri Ingorevich of Ryazan, and warriors of Evpatiy Kolovrat. We were sent from Prince Ingvar Ingorevich of Ryazan to honor you, the mighty Tsar, and to see you off with honor, and to give you honor. Don’t be surprised, Tsar, that we don’t have time to pour cups for the great power - the Tatar army.” The king was surprised at their wise answer.

And he sent his brother-in-law’s son, Khostovrul, against Evpatiy, and with him many Tatar troops. Khostovrul boasted to the king that he would bring Evpatia to the king alive. And large Tatar forces surrounded everyone, wanting to capture Evpatiy alive. Khostovrul entered into single combat with Evpatiy. Evpatiy, the hero, by force, cut Khostovrul in two right up to the saddle. And he began to flog the Tatar army and beat many famous heroes of the Batyevs, cutting some in two, and cutting others to the saddle.

The Tatars were frightened, seeing that Evpatiy was a giant hero. And they aimed countless battering guns at him, and began to hit him with them, and with difficulty killed him. And they brought his body before King Batu. Tsar Batu sent for the Murzas, and for the princes, and for the Sanchakbeys, and everyone began to marvel at the courage, and strength, and courage of the Ryazan army. And they said to the king: “We have been with many kings, in many lands, in many battles, but we have never seen such daredevils and spirited men, nor have our fathers told us about such. For these are people with wings and without<страха>of death. So bravely and courageously they fought: one fought with a thousand, and two with darkness. No one could escape them from the battle alive!”

Tsar Batu, looking at Evpatiy’s body, said: “Oh Evpatiy Kolovrat! You treated me well to your little retinue! He killed many heroes of the strong horde, and many troops fell. If someone like him served me, I would love him with all my heart.” And he gave Evpatievo’s body to the survivors of his squad who were captured in battle. And King Batu ordered them to be released and not to cause any harm.

Prince Ingvar Ingorevich at that time was in Chernigov with his brother, Prince Mikhail Vsevolodovich of Chernigov, God saved him from the evil Christian enemy who rejects God. And he came from Chernigov to the land of Ryazan, to the possessions of his fathers, and saw it deserted, and learned that all his brothers had been killed by the wicked Tsar Batu, who had transgressed the Divine laws.

And he came to the city of Ryazan, and saw the city devastated, and his mother, and his daughters-in-law, and relatives, and a great many people lying dead, and the walls were destroyed, the churches were burned, and all the treasures from the treasury of the Chernigov and Ryazan princes were stolen. And Prince Ingvar Ingorevich saw that the great final destruction had come because of our sins, and with pity<сердечной>cried out like a trumpet signaling the start of battle, like a mellifluous organ wailing. And from the great scream and terrible cry he lay on the ground as if dead. And they barely cast it in water and carried it in the wind. And his breathing barely returned.

For who will not cry at such a death, or who will not weep for so many Orthodox people, or who will not regret so many killed sovereigns, or who will not groan over such a conquest!

Prince Ingvar Ingorevich, sorting through the bodies of the dead, found the body of his mother, Grand Duchess Agrippina Rostislavovna, and recognized his daughters-in-law. And he called priests from the villages, whom God had saved, and buried his mother and his daughters-in-law with great weeping instead of psalms and church singing: he screamed loudly and sobbed. And they buried all the bodies of the dead, and cleaned up the city, and consecrated it. And only a few people gathered, and the prince gave them little consolation. And he cried incessantly, remembering his mother, and his brothers, and relatives, and all the patterns of Ryazan - they died at once. For all this came for our sins.

Oh, this city of Ryazan and the land of Ryazan! Her beauty has disappeared, and her glory has departed, and there is nothing good for the eye in her - only smoke and ashes. And the churches all burned down, and the great church inside burned out and turned black. And not only this city was captured, but many others as well. There was no singing in the city<церковного>, not a sound<колокольного>: instead of joy, everyone was constantly crying.

Prince Ingvar Ingorevich went to where his brothers were killed by the wicked Tsar Batu: Grand Duke Yuri Ingorevich Ryazansky, his brother Prince Davyd Ingorevich, his brother Vsevolod Ingorevich and many local princes, and boyars, and governors, and the entire army - daredevils and frolics, patterned Ryazan. They lay on the desert ground, on feather grass, frozen with snow and ice, protected by no one. Their bodies were eaten by beasts and torn to pieces by many birds. All<здесь>They lay there, they died together, they all drank the same cup of death.

And Prince Ingvar Ingorevich saw many dead bodies lying, and cried out in a sadly strong voice, like the sound of a trumpet growing, and beating his chest with his hands, fell to the ground. Tears flowed from his eyes in a stream. And he said with pity: “Oh, my dear brothers and army! How did they die, my dear lives? I was the only one left in such ruin! Why didn't I die before you? And where have you hidden from my eyes? And where have they gone, the treasures of my life? Why don’t you tell me, your brother, the flowers are beautiful, my gardens are unripe! No longer will you delight my soul! Why, my gentlemen, don’t look at me, your brother, and talk to me? Have they really forgotten me, their brother, born from the same father, half-uterine?<с вами>from the honest offspring of our mother, Grand Duchess Agrippina Rostislavovna, fed by one breast,<одного из>a prolific garden? And to whom did they leave me, their brother? My dear sun, it has set early! Beautiful months quickly ruined! Eastern stars, why did you come in early? Lying on the deserted land, protected by no one, receiving honor and glory from no one! Your glory has changed! What is your power? You were rulers of many lands, but now you lie on deserted land, and your appearance has been changed by decay! O my dear brothers and affectionate squad! I won't have fun with you anymore! My dear lights, why are they covered in darkness? I didn’t rejoice with you for long! If God hears your prayer, then pray for me, your brother, so that I die with you! For behind the joy, crying and tears came to me, and behind the joy, lamentation and sorrow appeared to me. Why didn’t I die before you, then I wouldn’t have seen your death, but my own destruction? Can't you hear me, my bitter words of sadness? O earth-earth! O oak forests! Cry with me! Whatever I call that day, or how I describe it, then so many sovereigns and many of the Ryazan troops died - brave daredevils. Not one of them returned, but they died anyway and drank the same cup of death for all of them. And now, in the sorrow of my soul, my tongue does not obey, my lips are closed, my eyes are clouded, my courage is lost!”

And then there was a lot of sadness for the dead and sorrow, and tears and sighing, and fear and trembling from all the evil that came to us!

Grand Duke Ingvar Ingorevich raised his hands to the sky and cried out with tears, saying: “My Lord God! I trust in you, save me, and deliver me from all those who persecute me! Most pure Lady Theotokos, mother of Christ our God! Do not leave me during my sorrow! Our great passion-bearers and relatives Boris and Gleb! Be me, a sinner, helpers in battles! O my brothers and my masters! Help me in your holy prayers<в сражениях>with our adversaries - with the Hagarians, the grandchildren of the Izmailovs!

Prince Ingvar Ingorevich began to disassemble the bodies of the dead, and took the bodies of his brothers: Grand Duke Georgy Ingorevich, Prince Davyd Ingorevich of Murom, and Prince Gleb Ingorevich Kolomensky, and other local princes - his relatives, and many boyars, and governors, and neighboring famous ones, and brought them to the city of Ryazan, and buried them with honors. And others - there, in a deserted place, he gathered and, after serving a memorial service, buried them.

Prince Ingvar Ingorevich went to the city of Pronsk, and collected the dissected body of his brother, the faithful and Christ-loving Prince Oleg Ingorevich, and brought it to the city of Ryazan, and the great Prince Ingvar Ingorevich himself carried his glorious head all the way to the city, and kissed it with love. And he put him with Grand Duke Yuri Ingorevich in one coffin, and put his brothers - Prince Davyd Ingorevich and Prince Gleb Ingorevich, near their coffin in the same tomb.

Prince Ingvar Ingorevich went to the river in Voronezh, where Prince Fyodor Yuryevich Ryazansky was killed. And he took his glorious body, and wept over it for a long time, and brought it to his possessions - to the great wonderworker Nikolai of Korsun. And his faithful princess Eupraxia, and their son Prince Ivan Fedorovich Postnik<похоронил>In one place. And he placed stone crosses over them. And for the reason that she herself crashed<заразилась>Princess Eupraxia with her son Prince Ivan, and the great miracle worker is called Nikolai Zarazsky.

These sovereigns<князья рязанские>- from the family of Vladimir Svyatoslavich, relatives of Boris and Gleb, grandchildren of Grand Duke Svyatoslav Olegovich of Chernigov. From generation to generation they were Christ-loving, brotherly-loving, beautiful in face, bright in their eyes, menacing in their gaze, brave beyond measure, light in heart, affectionate towards the boyars, friendly to visitors, diligent towards churches, quick to feasts, eager for the lord's fun, very active in military affairs skillful, majestic towards their brothers and their ambassadors.

Having a courageous mind, abiding in truth, they maintained spiritual and physical purity without blemish. The shoots of the holy root and beautiful flowers planted by God in the garden were brought up in piety with all kinds of spiritual instruction. From the very shrouds they loved God, they cared a lot about the churches of God. Without making empty conversations, avoiding people who had disgraced themselves, they always talked with the good ones, and they always listened to the Divine Scriptures with tenderness.

They seemed terrible to the warriors in battle; they defeated many of the enemies who rose up against them and had a glorious name in all countries. The Greek kings were very loved, and many received gifts from them.

After marriage they lived abstinently, seeking the salvation of their souls. With a clear conscience, strength and reason, they ruled the earthly kingdom, approaching the heavenly one. Without indulging the flesh, they kept their body after marriage to no sin. Having the rank of sovereigns, they were diligent in fasting and prayer and carried their cross on their shoulders. They received honor and glory from the whole world. And they honestly observed the holy days of holy fasting, and during all fasts they partook of the holy, most pure and immortal mysteries.

And according to the right faith, many deeds and victories were shown. And they often fought with the filthy Polovtsians for the holy churches and the Orthodox faith. And they tirelessly guarded their fatherland from their enemies. And they gave endless alms, and with their affection they attracted many of the unfaithful rulers, their children and brothers, and converted them to the true faith!

Blessed<князь Ингварь Ингоревич>, in holy baptism Kosma sat on the throne of his father, Grand Duke Ingor Svyatoslavich. And he rebuilt the land of Ryazan, and built churches, and created monasteries, and comforted the strangers, and gathered people. And there was joy for the Christians: for God delivered them with His strong hand from the godless king Batu.

And he made Mr. Mikhail Vsevolodovich Pronsky prince in his fatherland.

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