Russia and its inhabitants have always been peaceful and hospitable towards other nations. However, they constantly had to wage war throughout their existence. These were not always defensive wars. During the formation of the state, Russia had to, among other things, conquer lands for itself. But still, basically the country had to constantly defend itself from numerous enemies.
When talking about the great commanders of Russia, it is very difficult to single out the most significant of them.
Great commanders of Russia
How many of them have existed over the centuries-old history of the country? Most likely, more than one thousand. Someone constantly fought for the country, but time has not preserved their names. And someone accomplished one great feat and became famous throughout the centuries. And there were a huge number of wonderful and brave princes, governors and officers, whose only feat went unnoticed.
The great commanders of Russia are a very broad topic, so we can only briefly talk about the most famous of them. If we start from the period of formation of the Russian state, then the most prominent personality of that time was the defender of Rus' from the attacks of the Pechenegs, Polovtsians and Khazars, Prince Svyatoslav, who lived in the 10th century. He saw danger in the weak borders of the state and constantly strengthened them, spending almost all his time on campaigns. Svyatoslav died like a true warrior - in battle.
- Prince Oleg (Prophetic)
Prophetic Oleg (879 - 912) Main battles: Campaign against Byzantium, Eastern campaigns. The semi-legendary Prophetic Oleg is the prince of Novgorod (from 879) and Kiev (from 882), the unifier of Ancient Rus'. He significantly expanded its borders, dealt the first blow to the Khazar Kaganate and concluded treaties with the Greeks that were beneficial for Rus'. Pushkin wrote about him: “Your name is glorified by victory: Your shield is on the gates of Constantinople.”
- Prince Svyatoslav
Prince Svyatoslav (942–972) Wars: Khazar campaign, Bulgarian campaigns, war with Byzantium Karamzin called Prince Svyatoslav “Russian Macedonian”, historian Grushevsky - “Cossack on the throne”. Svyatoslav was the first to make an active attempt at extensive land expansion. He successfully fought with the Khazars and Bulgarians, but the campaign against Byzantium ended in a truce that was unfavorable for Svyatoslav. He died in a battle with the Pechenegs. Svyatoslav is a cult figure. His famous “I’m coming to you” is still quoted today.
- Monomakh Vladimir Vsevolodovich
- Nevsky Alexander Yaroslavich
Alexander Nevsky (1220–1263) Main battles: Battle of the Neva, war with the Lithuanians, Battle of the Ice. Even if you don’t remember the famous Battle of the Ice and the Battle of the Neva, Alexander Nevsky was an extremely successful commander. He made successful campaigns against German, Swedish and Lithuanian feudal lords. In particular, in 1245, with the Novgorod army, Alexander defeated the Lithuanian prince Mindovg, who attacked Torzhok and Bezhetsk. Having released the Novgorodians, Alexander, with the help of his squad, pursued the remnants of the Lithuanian army, during which he defeated another Lithuanian detachment near Usvyat. In total, judging by the sources that have reached us, Alexander Nevsky conducted 12 military operations and did not lose in any of them.
Perhaps the most famous commander of Russia, about whom almost everyone knows, is Prince Alexander Nevsky, the defender of Rus' from the Swedish and German knights. He lived in the 13th century, during a turbulent time of the active spread of the Livonian Order to the Baltic lands neighboring Novgorod. The conflict with the knights was very undesirable and dangerous for Rus', since it was not only about the seizure of territory, but also about the issue of faith. Rus' was Christian, and the knights were Catholics. In the summer of 1240, 55 Swedish ships landed on the banks of the Neva. Prince Alexander secretly arrived at their camp site and on July 15 unexpectedly attacked them. The Swedes were defeated, and the prince received a new name - Nevsky. The second battle with foreign invaders took place in the winter of 1242. In order to finally expel the enemy from the Novgorod land, Alexander Nevsky set out on a campaign against the Livonian Order. To meet the enemy, the prince chose a narrow isthmus between two lakes. And this battle was successfully won.
- Donskoy Dmitry Ivanovich
Dmitry Donskoy (1350–1389) Wars and battles: War with Lithuania, war with Mamai and Tokhtomysh Dmitry Ivanovich was nicknamed “Donskoy” for his victory in the Battle of Kulikovo. Despite all the contradictory assessments of this battle and the fact that the period of yoke continued for almost 200 years, Dmitry Donskoy is deservedly considered one of the main defenders of the Russian land. Sergius of Radonezh himself blessed him for the battle.
It is impossible to imagine the brilliant galaxy of great Russian commanders without Prince Dimitri Ivanovich (Donskoy), the first Russian commander to defeat the Horde army. He was the first to transfer his throne to his son, without asking permission from the Khan of the Golden Horde.
The famous Kulikovo Massacre, the main feat of the Great Moscow Prince Dmitry, took place on September 8, 1380. The prince himself fought in simple armor in the vanguard, which was completely destroyed by the Tatars. But the prince, pinned down by a tree, survived. Well-ordered troops and the help of allies helped defeat the forces of the Horde, led by Khan Mamai.
- Ermak Timofeevich
Ermak (? -1585) Merits: Conquest of Siberia. Ermak Timofeevich is a semi-legendary character. We do not even know for sure the date of his birth, but this does not in any way diminish his merits. It is Ermak who is considered the “conqueror of Siberia.” He did this almost of his own free will - Grozny wanted to bring him back “under pain of great disgrace” and use him “to protect the Perm region.” When the king wrote the decree, Ermak had already conquered the capital of Kuchum.
- Ivan IV (Grozny)
- Pozharsky Dmitry Mikhailovich
Pozharsky Dmitry Mikhailovich is another famous commander who led the struggle of the Russian people in the Time of Troubles against the Polish invaders. He participated in the first and second people's militia and led the liberation of Moscow from the Polish garrison. He also proposed choosing the last heir from the Rurik family, Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, as king.
- Peter I (the Great)
The 18th century opens with the great Tsar and commander Peter I. He preferred not to rely on the forces of others and always led his army himself. Even in early childhood, Peter began to engage in military training, organizing fights with village boys in a small fortress built for him. He completely built the Russian fleet and organized a new regular army. Peter I fought with the Ottoman Khanate and won the Northern War, allowing Russian ships to enter the Baltic Sea.
- Suvorov Alexander Vasilievich
- Pugachev Emelyan Ivanovich
- Ushakov Fedor Fedorovich
Fyodor Ushakov (1744–1817) Main battles: Battle of Fidonisi, Battle of Tendra (1790), Battle of Kerch (1790), Battle of Kaliakria (1791), Siege of Corfu (1798, assault: February 18-20, 1799). Fyodor Ushakov is a famous Russian commander who never knew defeat. Ushakov did not lose a single ship in battles, not a single one of his subordinates was captured. In 2001, the Russian Orthodox Church canonized Theodore Ushakov as a righteous warrior.
- Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich
Major wars and battles: Storm of Izmail, Battle of Austerlitz, Patriotic War of 1812: Battle of Borodino. Mikhail Kutuzov is a famous commander. When he distinguished himself in the Russian-Turkish war, Catherine II said: “Kutuzov must be protected. He will be a great general for me." Kutuzov was wounded twice in the head. Both wounds were considered fatal at that time, but Mikhail Illarionovich survived. In the Patriotic War, having assumed command, he retained the tactics of Barclay de Tolly and continued to retreat until he decided to fight a general battle - the only one in the entire war. As a result, the Battle of Borodino, despite the ambiguity of the results, became one of the largest and bloodiest in the entire 19th century. More than 300 thousand people took part in it on both sides, and almost a third of this number were wounded or killed.
Sergey BOROVIKOV
Dmitry Khvorostinin - an outstanding Russian commander of the 16th century
Dmitry Ivanovich Khvorostinin was an outstanding commander of the 16th century, worthy of the grateful memory of his descendants. However, by coincidence, he turned out to be undeservedly forgotten in the history of Russia. Today, only a few specialists in the field of Russian history know about him, and this despite the fact that he played a vital role in the fate of the country, equal in importance to those whose names in the future became a symbol of heroism in defending the Muscovite kingdom from enemies. They stopped remembering Dmitry Khvorostinin quite quickly, especially after the Time of Troubles. There are no monuments in his honor even now.
Dmitry Khvorostinin participated in almost all military events of the mid and second half of the 16th century; his biography is actually the military history of Russia for several decades. Almost no information about him was deposited in publications on the history of the Yaroslavl region. Dmitry Khvorostinin’s comrade-in-arms, Prince Mikhail Vorotynsky, is spoken of much more as an innocent victim killed on the orders of Ivan the Terrible in 1573. Ivan IV Khvorostinin, who did not like Mikhail Vorotynsky for his wealth and independence, on the contrary, rewarded and promoted him and even took him into the oprichnina. The purpose of this work is to identify information from sources and literature about Dmitry Khvorostinin and evaluate his contribution to Russian military art and the defense of the Fatherland in the 16th century.
The commanders of the era of formation and strengthening of the Russian state, as a rule, came from noble families with high ranks and large land holdings. Dmitry Khvorostinin did not belong to the nobility. In local terms, he was much lower than the other governors who led the Russian regiments. To the very top of the military hierarchy of the last quarter of the 16th century. he was nominated not by his nobility, but by his military talent.
Two circumstances made this possible. Firstly, Tsar Ivan the Terrible carried out military reforms in the middle of the century and abolished localism in the army, which made it possible for less noble feudal lords to advance to high positions in the army. And, secondly, the establishment of the oprichnina in 1565 opened up great prospects for everyone who ended up in the oprichnina court, including Dmitry Khvorostinin. He was invariably taken under the protection of both Ivan the Terrible and his successor on the Russian throne, Fyodor Ivanovich. The point here, of course, is not only about connections at court or personal sympathies. The kings needed an experienced and loyal commander, i.e. military and state expediency outweighed traditional parochial calculations.
Dmitry Khvorostinin came from the youngest branch of the princely family of the Ukhorsky inheritance, which dates back to Rurik in the 19th generation, on his father’s side - from the Yaroslavl princes, on his mother’s side - from the Rostov princes. The fifth son of the appanage prince Vasily Danilovich - Mikhail Khvorostin - was the ancestor of the Khvorostinins. The “History of the Family of the Russian Nobility,” published in St. Petersburg in 1886, says that this family lasted for six generations and in the first three was very influential due to the talents of its representatives. First of all, it is necessary to provide brief information on the genealogy of the Khvorostinin family.
Prince Mikhail Vasilyevich Khvorostina had two sons: the elder Ivan Mikhailovich, the successor of the family, and the younger Mikhail Mikhailovich, childless. Prince Ivan Mikhailovich from 1538 to 1564. He was a commander in many campaigns and received the rank of okolnik. Before the establishment of the oprichnina, he was apparently dismissed from regimental service, and then took monastic vows in the Rostov Boris and Gleb Monastery with the name Joseph. He died in 1571.
All four sons of Ivan Mikhailovich, the two eldest - boyars, the two younger - okolnichy, served in the oprichnina. The eldest of these four brothers, Prince Dmitry Ivanovich, was a governor in Shatsk in 1559, in Nizhny Novgorod in 1560, and on the Livonian front in 1562. In the following years, he was with the sovereign on campaigns to Polotsk and Velikiye Luki. Received into the Oprichnina court, he was granted okolnichy before 1569 and, as a governor from the oprichnina, served in Kaluga and on the Livonian front. He received the boyarhood in the year of the death of Tsar Ivan the Terrible. Prince Dmitry Ivanovich died as a monk with the name Dionysius on August 7, 1591. From his marriage to Evdokia Nikitichnaya, he left sons: Grigory Dmitrievich, Ivan Dmitrievich, okolnichy under Tsar Boris Godunov, and Yuri Dmitrievich. His son, Okolnichy Fyodor, was granted a boyar on January 12, 1653. He was married to Elena Borisovna (Princess Tateva) and had two sons, Semyon Fedorovich and Ivan Fedorovich, the steward. With their death, the famous surname of the princes Khvorostinins faded away.
Dmitry Ivanovich's second brother, Prince Fyodor Ivanovich, was the head of the regiments in Tula in 1560. In the oprichnina he received okolnichestvo in 1569, and in 1577 he was a butler of the Great Palace. Under Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich, he received the boyars. He died on September 17, 1608, having taken monastic vows at Trinity (in the monks of Theodosius).
The third brother, Prince Andrei Ivanovich Karlo or Starko, the father of the famous author of the story about the Time of Troubles (“Words of the Days and Tsars and Saints of Moscow”), was with the Tsar in 1568. In 1572 he became the head of the regiments under the prince. From 1573 - in Novosil, in 1575 - governor in Dedilov; in 1577-1579 - in Kolomna. Known as the defender of Pskov from Stefan Batory in 1581, and in 1583 he took part in the campaign against the Cheremis. Under Fyodor Ivanovich in 1585 he served in Tarusa, in 1593 he was granted a okolnichy. In 1594 he built abatis from Kursk and Orel for defense against Crimean invasions. Died April 24, 1604.
The fourth of the brothers, Pyotr Ivanovich, was a messenger with gold rewards to the regiments in 1565. During the king's campaign in 1571 there was a bell with a saadak. At the very end of the oprichnina, he was promoted to okolnichy and in August 1572 he was in coastal service on the Oka River, in 1577 in Dedilov, in 1578 on the Livonian front. He died childless at the end of the reign of Ivan the Terrible.
Accurate data on the birth of the future commander has not been preserved. The compilers of the Russian Biographical Dictionary wrote vaguely that he was born in Moscow in the twenties of the 16th century. Dmitry Khvorostinin received any noticeable position in the “state service” only in adulthood, apparently after 30 years. It was first mentioned in the discharge book only in 1559, when an attack by the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey was expected. In the same 1559, Dmitry Khvorostinin “according to the Crimean news” was recalled to the Big Regiment, but did not receive a voivodeship position there - he was only the head, the commander of a detachment of “children of the boyars”. However, under favorable conditions, the promotion of Dmitry Khvorostinin was slow and it took decades of faithful service for him to finally occupy independent large positions in the army. Literally every noticeable step up the military ladder was accompanied by protests.
At the beginning of his service, Khvorostinin was awarded the rank of steward. In 1559 he was a governor in Shatsk, then in the Bolshoi Regiment with Prince Ivan Dmitrievich Belsky, in 1560, according to “rank from the field” - in Nizhny Novgorod. In 1562, the sovereign sent the governor from Yuryev to Tarvas for a campaign against the Lithuanians. In the Big Regiment there were a boyar and a governor, Prince Vasily Mikhailovich Glinsky and Khvorostinin. However, the campaign to Lithuania was postponed; regiments from Yuryev “went to the Livonian Germans.”
Initially, a major victory was achieved on the front of the Livonian War. In the autumn of 1562, Russian troops set out on a campaign and besieged the large Lithuanian fortress of Polotsk. Dmitry Khvorostinin is named in the tsar’s inner circle: he was ordered to “follow the sovereign.” On January 31, 1563, the city was besieged. On February 5, Moscow troops stormed Polotsk for the first time. On the same day, the first large-scale artillery shelling of the city began, which lasted until the evening. After this shelling, the besieged began negotiations, which were conducted from February 5 to 8. On the night of February 5-6, Moscow troops installed siege weapons at the very walls of the city. On the evening of February 7, heavy Moscow artillery approached Polotsk, and Ivan IV at the negotiations demanded unconditional surrender. On February 8, the negotiations were finally disrupted because someone shot at the Tsar's ambassador.
On February 8, the city was shelled by Russian heavy artillery. The guns were installed almost close to the walls of the Great Ostrog and simply broke them, piercing right through. On February 9, the defenders made a decision, which they consider the main reason for the rapid fall of Polotsk, to abandon and burn the Great Ostrog. The garrison, Polotsk townspeople and boyars of the Polotsk Voivodeship had to retreat to the Polotsk Castle, and 10 - 25 thousand “black people” surrendered. A big fire started, in which 3 thousand households burned down, Moscow troops on the shoulders of the besieged tried to break into the castle, and amid the fire, a stubborn battle ensued, which went on with varying success, until reinforcements arrived, led by D.F. Ovchinin and D.I. Khvorostinin, they managed to push the besieged into the castle, but did not take it right away. The captured “black people” showed large reserves of food hidden in forest caches near the city, which provided great assistance to the Moscow army.
On February 9–10, heavy artillery was installed opposite the Polotsk Castle at the fire of the Great Ostrog. On February 10 – 14, the guns fired non-stop for a whole day. On the night of February 12-13, the defenders of the castle launched a sortie with all their might to destroy the Moscow artillery, but nothing came of it. After continuous shelling during February 13-14, a strong fire broke out in the Polotsk castle. By that time, 1/5 of the castle walls had been broken by cannonballs, and on the night of February 14-15, Moscow archers, approaching the walls, set them on fire in several places.
A few hours before dawn on February 15, when Moscow troops began preparing for a general assault, the position of the castle’s defenders was hopeless. Negotiations continued until the evening of February 15 and ended with the capitulation of the city on the terms of preserving the lives and property of the besieged. On February 21, the ambassador of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania arrived at the king’s camp to negotiate a truce, which was immediately concluded. On February 27, leaving a garrison in Polotsk, Ivan IV with the main forces went to Moscow.
Dmitry Khvorostinin was one of the first to break into the fortress. “The king was very proud of this victory. It was not without reason that until the end of his days, Ivan IV especially favored most of the participants in the capture of Polotsk; only a few of them ended up on the chopping block, but many ended up in the oprichnina. The Polotsk victory became a pleasant memory for the tsar for a long time, and it was gratifying for him to look at the people who surrounded him under the walls of the besieged city.”
In 1564, governors were sent to Ukrainian cities. Tsarevich Ibak, many others, and the governor, Prince Dmitry Khvorostinin, were ordered to be in Velikiye Luki. In 1564, Khvorostinin, a former governor in Zaraysk, and his men managed to intercept the Crimeans returning from a raid with loot from near Kaluga, defeated them and liberated the “full”. In the fall of 1565, the situation in “Crimean Ukraine” worsened. In 1566, the army of the Crimean Khan broke through to Bolkhov. Sent by governor P.M. Shchenyatev and I.V. Sheremetev failed to complete the task due to a local dispute. “From the guardsmen, the sovereign sent the governor from Moscow, Prince Andrei Petrovich Telyatevsky, Dmitry and Andrei Khvorostinin.” Dmitry commanded a detachment of 200 horsemen. The khan failed to take Bolkhov, although he came “with guns.” Local governors made a sortie and drove the Tatars away from the city, but they did not even manage to burn the settlements. Having learned about the approach of the royal army, the khan hastily retreated. For this campaign, Dmitry Ivanovich received a “gold” coin as a reward from the tsar - a coin that was used at that time as a medal.
On September 3, 1568, the Tsar and Grand Duke of All Rus' Ivan Vasilyevich conceived a campaign together with his son Tsarevich Ivan against the Lithuanian king, in the Advanced Regiment in Vyazma, Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Khvorostinin. In 1569, a new “list from the Polish Ukraine”, which lists the governors from the oprichnina, who are obliged to go with their regiments to the “shore”. Among them, in the Advanced Regiment in Kaluga is Dmitry Khvorostinin. Then he was transferred even closer to the Wild Field, to Tula, as the first commander of the Guard Regiment. At the same time he received the high title of oprichnina okolnichy.
V.B. Kobrin wrote the following about this: “The fact is that the oprichnina accepted not only executioners, but also experienced military leaders: after all, the oprichnina troops took part in hostilities. Acceptance into the oprichnina was a sign of royal favor, a reward that could not be refused. Therefore, the mere fact of serving in the oprichnina, if we do not have information about atrocities at our disposal, cannot serve as sufficient grounds to consider any “voivode from the oprichnina” an executioner and murderer. We do not know anything about the participation of D.I. Khvorostinin in one or another punitive actions of the oprichnina. Let us extend the presumption of innocence to him and preserve his memory as a courageous commander.”
In the spring of 1570, during the next campaign of the 50,000-strong horde of the Crimean Khan against the Moscow principality, the Tatar “corrals” penetrated the Ryazan land, into the Kashira district. The border region suffered terrible devastation. From Kashira, boyar Ivan Sheremetev wrote to the Tsar and the Grand Duke that Crimean people had come to the Ryazan and Kashira places. The main forces of the Russian army were advanced to the Oka. On May 21, 1570, for Zaraisk, the governor D.I. Khvorostinin and F. Lvov, without waiting for reinforcements, entered into battle with the enemy and at night destroyed one of the “corrals”, caught the “tongues” and freed many prisoners. The fighting turned out to be so successful that the horde retreated, and on May 24, 1570, the king returned to the capital.
In 1571, with the sovereign, the governors were on a campaign among the regiments: in Peredovo - the okolnichy prince Dmitry Ivanovich Khvorostinin. The troops of the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey managed to break through the defensive line of the “coast” and burn Moscow to the ground. The Tsar blamed Prince Mstislavsky for this failure. Together with other boyars and “children of the boyars,” the okolnichy Dmitry Khvorostinin vouched for Mstislavsky with his own head and property, and the deposit was huge for those times - 40 thousand rubles. (an important touch to characterize the governor’s personality). In 1572, during the campaign of the Tsar and the Grand Duke to Veliky Novgorod and against the Swedes, Khvorostinin was in the Watch Regiment.
The Battle of Molodinsk in 1572 brought great fame to Khvorostin, when a 120,000-strong Crimean-Turkish army was destroyed. “In the Advanced Regiment, Prince Andrei Petrovich Khovansky and the okolnichy and governor, Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Khvorostinin (4475 people). Having gathered with people, the governors stood along the shore: the advanced regiment in Kaluga. And according to the news, the governors were at the gathering: in the advanced regiment with Khovansky and with Dmitry Khvorostinin from Novosil, the governor was Prince Mikhail Lykov.” “Contrary to tradition, the leading regiment was significantly superior in numbers to the regiment of the right and left hands. Such a large number is explained by the fact that Vorotynsky was afraid of the outflanking maneuver of the khan, who last year advanced to Moscow to the west of the “shore”. Khvorostinin was precisely covering this “old” road. He also had at his disposal a mobile “ship army” that could quickly maneuver along the Oka or Ugra - Vyatchans in plows (900 people).”
On the night of July 27, 1572, the Nogai detachment of Murza Tereberdey, advancing in the vanguard of the Crimean troops, approached the Oka River and with a swift blow knocked down the Russian outpost covering Senkin's transport. The 200 boyar children who were here retreated, and the Tatars destroyed the fortifications on the Moscow side of the river. Another enemy detachment, commanded by Divey-Murza, captured a “climb” near the mouth of the river. Protvy, “against Drakin.” Despite the capture of the second bridgehead, the main forces of the Crimean army began to cross the Senkin Ford. Russian governors in Kashira (Sentry Regiment of I.P. Shuisky and V.I. Umny-Kolychev) and Tarusa (regiment of the Right Hand of Nikita Romanovich Odoevsky and Fyodor Vasilyevich Sheremetev) did not have time to cover these crossings and prevent the enemy’s decisive push to Moscow.
In his notes, guardsman G. Staden noted: “When the king approached the river. Okay, Prince Khvorostinin sent me with 300 service people. I had to watch along the river where the king would cross. I walked up several miles and saw that several thousand horsemen of the Crimean Tsar were already on this side of the river. I moved towards them with three hundred and immediately sent them with haste to the prince so that he could come to our aid. The prince, however, answered: “If they don’t like it, they will return themselves.” But this was impossible. The king's army surrounded us and drove us to the river. Oke."
The advanced detachments of Khvorostinin’s regiment saw such a large number of Tatar horsemen in front of them that after a short battle, the governor decided not to continue the meaningless battle (he had about 3 thousand soldiers without guns and “walk-the-city” against 60 thousand of the Khan’s army) and retreated. However, the unexpected appearance of Russian warriors on the flank delayed the khan for some time. On the night of July 28, 1572, the army of Devlet-Girey, which broke through, moved along the Serpukhov road towards Moscow. At this hour M.I. acted most decisively. Vorotynsky. The Big Regiment under his command, leaving its positions near Serpukhov, went to Moscow, following the Crimean army, cutting off the route of retreat. On the flanks from Kaluga, across the Tatars were the Advanced Regiment D.I. Khvorostinin, from Kashira - Guard Regiment I.P. Shuisky and V.I. Umnogo-Kolychev.
On July 30, across the Pakhra River near the village of Molodi, 45 versts from Moscow, the Advanced Regiment D.I. Khvorostinina overtook the rearguards of Devlet-Girey’s army and defeated them. The Tatars could not withstand the blow and fled. According to the ranks, Khvorostinin “dominated” the enemy guard regiment to the Khan’s headquarters. Alarmed by the blow of the Russian cavalry, the khan stopped the offensive and began to withdraw his troops from behind Pakhra. He sent the 12,000-strong detachment that was with him against Khvorostinin’s troops, which entered into battle with the Russian noble hundreds. Possessing an overwhelming superiority of forces, the Tatars overthrew Khvorostinin’s regiment and began to pursue him. But the general situation has already changed. The skillfully maneuvering Advanced Regiment, retreating, brought the enemy under attack from the Large Regiment that had approached the battlefield and strengthened its positions with a hastily erected “walk-the-city.” Beginning with small skirmishes, the clash at Molodi grew into a large battle, on the outcome of which the fate of the war depended.
Under the cover of rifle and artillery fire from the archers and German mercenaries entrenched in the “Walk-Gorod”, hundreds of noble cavalry counterattacked the Tatars, then again retreated behind the line of shield fortifications and rushed towards the enemy. The Tatar military leader Divey-Murza was captured, and the head of the Nogai detachment, Tereberdey, was killed. The battle soon died down, resuming two days later, during which there were short clashes between the mounted patrols. The greatly depleted Russian regiments were forced to take refuge behind the walls of the “walk-city”. Stored food supplies quickly ran out, and famine began. The reason was that the Crimeans, taking advantage of their enormous numerical superiority, recaptured the convoys from Vorotynsky and surrounded his army from all sides.
Having received false news about reinforcements coming to the Russian commanders, Devlet-Girey decided to use his last chance and led his troops in a decisive attack. On August 2, the Crimean army stormed the “Walk-Gorod”, the defense of which was led by governor Khvorostinin, striving at all costs to defeat the Russians and recapture Diveya-Murza. During a fierce battle under the walls of the Big Regiment fortress under the command of M.I. Vorotynsky was able to bypass the enemy army, striking from the rear. At the same time, the enemy was attacked by detachments of Russian and German infantry located in the “Walk-Gorod”. This attack was led personally by Dmitry Khvorostinin. The Khan's army could not withstand the double blow. The Tatars started to run. Many of them were killed. The assault on the “walk-city” failed, the grandson, the sons of Devlet-Girey and the second person in the khanate, Kalgi, died in the battle, “and many Murzas and Tatars were caught alive.” At night, the horde moved away and moved south, followed by the Russian army returning to the Oka.
On August 3, Russian troops continued to pursue the enemy, capturing prisoners and booty, and completely destroyed 2 Tatar barriers left by the khan on the Oka River and numbering up to 5 thousand horsemen. Only 5 thousand people reached Crimea. “According to deep-rooted tradition, the glory of the winner over the Tatars is usually attributed to the chief governor Vorotynsky. His appointment as commander-in-chief in 1572 was explained not by his talents, but by his “breed,” in full accordance with local orders. The hero of the Battle of Molodi was the young oprichnina governor Khvorostinin, who formally held the post of second governor of the advanced regiment. Two years before the battle, Khvorostinin inflicted a strong defeat on the Crimeans near Ryazan. But his military talent was fully revealed in the war with the Tatars in 1572.” Even if this is an exaggeration, the important role of the oprichnina governor Khvorostinin in the events is undeniable. His military authority is unusually high. He is promoted to the first rank of Russian commanders, although his personal situation after the abolition of the oprichnina in 1572 became more complicated: former oprichnina governors came under the command of senior zemstvo governors, who, as a rule, came from the titled nobility. In cases where Dmitry Khvorostinin was appointed to high military positions, frequent parochial disputes broke out. As a result, he ended up as the second or third voivode of the minor regiments.
In the winter of 1573, the Tsar and the Grand Duke marched to Weissenstein (Paide) in the Livonian land and took the city by storm. There was also the okolnichy prince Dmitry Ivanovich Khvorostinin - the second governor of the Left Hand regiment, in the campaign “under German cities” - the second governor of the Advanced Regiment. In the spring of 1573, on the “shore”, governors were appointed to regiments: in Peredovoy, the second governor was Khvorostinin. But even here he managed to distinguish himself. The Crimeans were moving towards Serpukhov, but Dmitry Khvorostinin came out to meet them from Kolomna, defeated the horde near Voskresensk and drove them back.
There was a strong rebellion in the Kazan region, where the meadow and mountain Cheremis, having secret connections with Khan Devlet-Girey, separated from Russia. In the autumn of 1573, the boyars and governors embarked on a campaign to Murom for the sovereign's business with the Kazan people. Khvorostinin was also in Murom. Here he is simply named among other okolnichy, and before the campaign “to the Kazan places” he was appointed second governor of the Guard Regiment in Shuya. The rebels were pacified. And on the “shore” there is a painting of boyars and governors by regiment: in Storozhevoy - the okolnichy and governor Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Khvorostinin was in Kolomna. Wary, although no longer afraid of Devlet-Girey, Ivan the Terrible from time to time gathered regiments on the banks of the Oka; having left Novgorod himself in the summer of 1574, he inspected the large army in Serpukhov; He also sent detachments to the steppes, where the khan’s warriors sometimes appeared for robbery.
We have reached a recording of the interrogation of Russian people who returned from Crimean captivity conducted by Ivan the Terrible personally in January 1574. The tsar asked the unfortunate people under torture: “Which of our boyars are betraying us: Vasily Umnoy, Boris Tulupov, Mstislavsky, Fyodor Trubetskoy, Ivan Shuisky, the Pronskys, the Khovanskys, the Khvorostinins, Nikita Romanov, Boris Serebryany?” Many of those named were right there, and one of them, Vasily Umnoy-Kolychev, was even the chief interrogator.
In 1575, on the “shore”, the boyars and governors were distributed among regiments: in Peredovoy - the okolnichy prince Dmitry Ivanovich Khvorostinin, stationed in Kaluga. In 1576, the campaign of the Tsar and Grand Duke of All Rus' Ivan Vasilyevich and his son Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich began on the “shore” against the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey. And the sovereign stood with all the people in Kaluga. In the Left Hand regiment on Kashira - Khvorostinin. Khan Devlet-Girey, fearing that he would earn the contempt of the enemy through long-term inaction, appeared in the “field” with 50 thousand horsemen in 1576; but he went back from Molochnye Vody, having learned that the Moscow regiments were standing on the banks of the Oka; that Ivan the Terrible himself was in Kaluga. In September 1576, the tsar, with his son and boyars, decided to send a governor to German soil for the winter with an outfit. There were governors near Kolyvan (Revel, Tallinn), the secondary siege of the city in 1577 ended in failure, the painting on the regiments: in Peredovoy - the okolnichy and Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Khvorostinin.
In 1577, Dmitry Khvorostinin became the second governor in Kolomna and Kaluga. In 1578, he was “on the shore”, leading the Sentry Regiment, and immediately a protest came from Mikhail Tyufyakin, the second governor: “Prince Mikhail Tyufyakin did not take the lists for him, Prince Dmitry, that it was inappropriate for him to be with him.” Then Khvorostinin was in the Left Hand Regiment, then appointed second commander of the Great Regiment in the Livonian Campaign, during which the army under his command took the city of Oberpalen (Põltsamaa), occupied by a strong Swedish garrison after the flight of King Magnus of Livonia, who betrayed Ivan the Terrible. Having taken Oberpalen and 200 prisoners, the governors sent them to Moscow for execution and were supposed to go immediately to Wenden, but, arguing among themselves about the authorities, they did not carry out the royal decree.
In 1579, Stefan Batory took active military action against Russia. He took Polotsk, besieged Velikiye Luki, and threatened Pskov and Novgorod. Khvorostinin was again on the northwestern border, in border Pskov, but only as the third commander in the Advanced Regiment. King Stefan Batory captured Vitebsk. The offensive of the Poles prompted the tsar to send governor Khvorostinin with the Advanced Regiment to Nevel, from where the shortest roads led to Polotsk. Khvorostinin defeated the Lithuanian-Livonian troops near Rzhev. In 1580, attacks by the Crimean Tatars resumed. In a large painting “on the shore,” the boyars ordered Dmitry Ivanovich Khvorostinin to be the second commander in the Advanced Regiment, and to stand in Kaluga. In Rzhev and Vladimir, the boyars and governors were distributed among regiments: in Bolshoi, the second governor was Khvorostinin. As soon as the Polish king came to Smolensk, then the governors were ordered to be in regiments: Dmitry Khvorostinin was in the Right Hand.
In the absence of orders from the tsar, the governors were afraid to act decisively, sent detachments to observe, protect the borders, and only once did they risk entering enemy territory: the princes Katyrev-Rostovsky, Khvorostinin, Shcherbaty, Turenin, Buturlin, having united in Mozhaisk, made a raid on Dubrovna, Orsha, Shklov , Mogilev, Radoml, burned out the districts and towns of these cities, defeated Lithuanian troops under the walls of Shklov and brought many prisoners to Smolensk. Ivan the Terrible awarded them “golden”, but this did not make him happy. On March 17, 1581, the governors stood in Mozhaisk, from Smolensk they went to war on Lithuanian soil near Mogilev and other cities. In the Big Regiment, the second governor is Khvorostinin, the actual leader of the campaign. The surrounding areas of Dubrovna, Orsha, Shklov, and Mogilev were devastated. It was a success. Stefan Batory began his campaign against Pskov. They immediately ordered “the devious prince Dmitry Khvorostinin to go to Novgorod.” But again, among the Novgorod governors, Khvorostinin was named third. When the Polish king Stefan Batory besieged Pskov, the devious prince Dmitry Khvorostinin was ordered to go to Novgorod. In the Pskov defense of 1581 - 1582. Andrey Khvorostinin took an active part.
In 1581, the Swedes launched a decisive offensive against the Russians, occupying almost all the fortresses in the Baltic states. Having gained a foothold in Narva and Ivangorod, they captured the border fortresses of Yam and Koporye with their counties. But in February 1582, the enemy faced the first major setback - the governors, princes Katyrev-Rostovsky, Tyumensky, Khvorostinin, Shcherbaty, having set out from Novgorod, went to Narva, Yamu and across the Neva to Finland. The advanced regiment, commanded by D.I. Khvorostinin and M.A. Beznin, not far from the village of Lyalitsa in Votskaya Pyatina, attacked the Swedes who were on a new offensive. The Swedes pressed the Russian system, but Khvorostinin turned the tide of the battle with a quick and bold blow from his cavalry. The Big Regiment moved to help, but the rest of the commanders did not have time for the battle. The enemy had to retreat to Narva in disarray. The Tsar sent “golden” medals to the commanders, once again distinguishing Prince Dmitry Khvorostinin. The Russian governors failed to develop their success. In accordance with the demand of the Polish messenger P. Vizgerd, Ivan the Terrible turned the troops advanced to Narva to Novgorod.
On April 20, 1582, the governors were ordered to be “on the shore”: Khvorostinin was in the Advanced Regiment, stationed in Kaluga. Suddenly a riot broke out in the land of the Meadow Cheremis, so dangerous and cruel that the Kazan governors could not pacify it. In October 1582, Ivan the Terrible sent an army to them with Prince Yeletsky; Having learned that the rebellion could not be suppressed, he ordered the commanders, princes Ivan Vorotynsky and Dmitry Khvorostinin, to march there from Murom. New news further increased the danger: the Crimean Khan Mehmet Giray, contrary to the peace letter, established contact with the Cheremis rebels and was ready to attack Russia; The Nogai, incited by him and the Siberian Khan Kuchum, carried out raids in the Kama region. The Crimean Khanate did not invade the Russian lands, but the Cheremis uprising continued until the death of Ivan the Terrible: lacking the means for a long-term war in the field, the tribes, with the cruelty of the tsarist governors, fought to the death with Moscow troops for independence in summer and winter on burnt terrain, in forests and caves.
Then the prince was in Novgorod. On December 31, 1582, the outfit for the winter campaign against the Swedes was determined by regiment: in Peredovoy - the okolnichy and governor, Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Khvorostinin. The time for great Swedish successes has passed. Despite all efforts, the enemy failed to capture the well-fortified Oreshek. Peace negotiations soon began, on August 10, 1583 between representatives of the Moscow state and Sweden, who gathered on the river. Plus, a truce was concluded for 3 years, starting from June 29, 1583. Then the Livonian War, which lasted 25 years, ended.
A new “painting” for the governors “on the shore and in the Ukraine.” Khvorostinin in the south, in Kaluga, as the second commander in the advanced regiment. In 1583 – 1584 he pacified the rebellious Meadow Cheremis and Kazan Tatars. We find information about this from V.N. Tatishchev: “Before the death of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, the Kazan Tatars betrayed him, the governor, the archbishop and other Russian people were beaten. In the winter of 1583, the sovereign sent regiments with various governors of the Tatars, Chuvash and Cheremis to fight and return Kazan, but the Tatars, partly on campaigns, partly in the camps, defeated many governors, and were forced to retreat.”
The governors gathered in regiments in Murom, the deadline was Dmitri's Day. In the Big Regiment, the okolnichy and governor, Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Khvorostinin, was named immediately after the famous commander Ivan Mikhailovich Vorotynsky, and the tsar “gave him a lesser order in secret.” And “on the shore” there were boyars and governors on the field: in the Advanced Regiment - the second governor Khvorostinin. In 1584, by order of the sovereign, it was decided to send the governor to the regiments on a winter campaign in Kazan. In the Right Hand is the okolnichy and governor, Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Khvorostinin. “The people of Kazan, hearing the accession of Tsar Fedor to the throne, sent a confession. Therefore, the sovereign sent a governor to Kazan and ordered cities to be built in the Cheremis mountains and meadows. And in the same year, the governors established Kokshaysk, Tsivilsk, Urzhum and other cities, and thereby strengthened this kingdom.” And letters from the sovereign were written to the okolnichy and governor Fyodor Vasilyevich Sheremetev and Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Khvorostinin and his comrades.” Khvorostinin is no longer a regimental commander, but one of two military leaders of the entire army. There is very little left before independent command.
In 1584, Dmitry Khvorostinin was appointed the first governor of the Big Regiment in the “Crimean Ukraine”. Prince Mikhail Turenin wrote from Zaraysk that he was “less than” Khvorostinin “to be weak.” By a special royal decree, the prince was ordered to be “according to the previous painting,” and then, “as soon as the service is over,” he was promised to “give judgment and account.” And Prince Andrei Khilkov wrote from Tula: “it is out of place” for him to be inferior to Dmitry Khvorostinin. Again a special royal decree: “According to the sovereign decree, it was written to Prince Andrei Khilkov, and ordered to be with the boyar Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Khvorostinin according to the list; as soon as the service is over, he will care about Prince Dmitry, and then he hits the sovereign with his forehead, and the sovereign orders him to give trial and account to Prince Dmitry.” At the same time, Dmitry Khvorostinin was granted a boyar status and appointed sovereign governor in Ryazan, with instructions to protect the entire border line from Horde raids.
In February 1585, the Polish ambassador Sapega visited the Tsar and Grand Duke of All Rus' Fyodor Ioannovich. And the sovereign indicated how to be in rank under the Polish and how the boyars should sit. The king was on the throne with an orb and a scepter; near him stood bells in white clothes and gold chains, Boris Godunov stood at the throne, everyone else was further away. Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Khvorostinin was sitting in a large shop. “Those who actually belong to the tsar’s own and secret council (namely, those who are with him every day to consult on state affairs) bear the additional title of Duma and are called Duma boyars, and their meeting, or session, is the Boyar Duma. Their names currently are as follows: “Prince Dimitry Ivanovich Khvorostinin...”.
“Lev Sapega, in order to intimidate the new Moscow government, announced that the Sultan was preparing for war with Moscow; demanded that the king give the king 120 thousand gold for the Moscow prisoners, and release the Lithuanian prisoners without ransom on the grounds that the king’s prisoners were all noble people, and the king’s were ordinary; so that all the complaints of the Lithuanian people were satisfied and Theodore excluded the name of Livonian from his title. The new Moscow government inherited from the old a strong reluctance to fight with Batory, and therefore it was decided to use every effort to extend the truce. The sovereign and the boyars agreed, as he was crowned with the royal crown: to release all the Lithuanian captives to Lithuania for nothing, and to leave his captives to the will of King Stephen. Sapega was announced about this decision, that 900 prisoners had already been released and were waiting for the same act from Stefan, new complaints of Lithuanian subjects would be satisfied, but as for complaints dating back to the times of Tsar Ivan the Terrible, these are old matters, it is not good to remember them , at that time there were grievances against the Russian people from Lithuania, but the sovereign does not mention them; Theodore inherited the name of Livonia from his father along with the kingdom. The ambassador left, concluding a truce for only 10 months."
In November 1585, according to Nogai news, the sovereign ordered the boyar and governor Khvorostinin to be sent to Ryazan from Moscow as the first governor in the Big Regiment. The appointment of an experienced governor was very timely. The Crimeans sharply intensified military pressure on Russian borders. In 1585, the Tatars attacked the Ryazan region, but Dmitry Khvorostinin managed to move troops to Shatsk in time and forced them to retreat. In 1586, he was the governor there, who was supposed to actually lead the entire defense of the south. If the big Nogai went to the Meshchera places, both the boyar and the governor, Prince Khvorostinin and his comrades were ordered to go to Shatsk to help their own. When the enemy came to the Ryazan places, and the governors with Prince Andrei Vasilyevich Trubetskoy went to help, Khvorostinin needed to be at the gathering in the Big Regiment. And if the Crimean Tsar or Tsarevichs went to the “shore”, the boyar and Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Khvorostinin then should have gone to a meeting with the governor, Prince Boris Kanbulatovich Cherkassky, and been in the Big Regiment.
In 1586, Khvorostinin was the “great voivode” on the southern border, and again one of the voivodes, Prince Vladimir Bakhteyarov, wrote to the tsar that “he could not be a lesser comrade with Prince Dmitry.” The following year, Dmitry Khvorostinin’s right to lead the Great Regiment was protested by the Tula voivode, Prince Fyodor Nogotkov: “He, Prince Fyodor, can be greater than Dmitry’s father, Ivan Khvorostinin, in many places, and thus Prince Dmitry dishonors him; and the sovereign would have granted it and ordered his petition to be written down.” Autumn “painting” of the governor of the same year: Dmitry Khvorostinin is no longer in the Big Regiment, but “in the Right Hand.” From Dedilov, voivode Ivan Saltykov wrote that “it is inappropriate for him to be less than Prince Dmitry,” and from Mikhailov, another voivode, Prince Ivan Tokmakov, complained that “he was ordered by design to be in the Watch Regiment, and boyar Khvorostinin in the Right Hand, and he is less than the prince.” It’s inappropriate for Dmitry to be there.” In 1586, the Crimeans and Nogais undertook a joint offensive, in which the Tatars alone numbered up to 30 thousand. And again failure: the Advanced Regiment came out from Kolomna and defeated the Horde.
In 1587, an outfit was determined from the Lithuanian and German sides and from the Crimean Ukraine, from field to shore and through Ukrainian cities. On May 29, 1587, the village head of the Bezobrazov Family came to the sovereign from Putivl, reporting that according to the estimate, the sakma, and the smoke, twenty or more thousand troops of the Crimean Khan or princes were marching along the great Murav road. And according to that news, the tsar sent the boyar and governor Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Khvorostinin and his comrades from Moscow to the shore, and ordered them to be in three regiments, to stand in Serpukhov, to gather with people and visit which places large military people would come, to go there and help , and pursue the sovereign’s business. Up to 40 thousand Horde soldiers invaded the border regions of Russia. Dmitry Khvorostinin managed to approach the “shore” with his regiments, and then cross the river and concentrate near Tula. The Horde plundered the surrounding area, but did not dare to engage in direct combat with a strong Russian army and retreated. Moscow governors did not leave the banks of the Oka; stood in Tula, Serpukhov, awaiting the raid of the khan himself.
On December 25, 1587, the Tsar and Grand Duke of All Rus' Fyodor Ivanovich decided with Metropolitan Job, the Holy Council and all the boyars how to stand against the Polish and Swedish kings and how to protect their outskirts from the Crimean Khan. In the Advanced Regiment there was the boyar and governor Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Khvorostinin, recalled to Novgorod from the south, and again the campaign did not take place. But Russia could not come to terms with the fact that the Swedes closed access to the Baltic Sea. For Khvorostinin, the main war in his life was approaching.
In 1588 – 1589 Khvorostinin was in Tula. In 1588, several noble governors beat the tsar with their foreheads: “they could not be less than Prince Dmitry”: Mikhail Turenin, Mikhail Kashin, Mikhail Saltykov, Andrei Khilkov. The tsar’s angry explanation followed: “They have nothing to do with Prince Dmitry Khvorostinin!” But Mikhail Turenin did not calm down, again “he hit the sovereign with his forehead against the boyar Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Khvorostinin about the places.” The matter ended with the fact that the touchy governor was ordered “to take him to Moscow in the sovereign’s disgrace,” and another was appointed in his place. But, nevertheless, local disputes continued, judging by the records of the discharge book, both in 1589 and 1590, i.e. until the end of Khvorostinin’s life. In the painting of “Ukrainian cities in Tula, the boyars and governors are Prince Timofey Romanovich Trubetskoy and Dmitry Ivanovich Khvorostinin. Tula was the center of defense of the south; governors with regiments should gather here in case of danger of an attack by the Crimean Khan Kazy-Girey. In this case, “at the gathering” of the entire army, Dmitry Khvorostinin became the commander of the Big Regiment, in his usual role of commander of the troops of the southern border.
On August 10, 1589, according to Swedish news, the Tsar and Grand Duke of All Rus' Fedor Ivanovich sent his boyars and governors in regiments to Veliky Novgorod. In the Big Regiment, the boyar and governor was Prince Dmitry Ivanovich Khvorostinin. Okolnichy Khvorostinin and treasurer Cheremisinov received orders: to demand Narva, Ivangorod, Yama, Koporye, Korely, for these cities to conclude an agreement with the brotherhood and pay up to 20 thousand rubles, and without Narva give only up to 15 thousand; conclude eternal peace with the brotherhood even for three cities - Yam, Koporye and Korela; if the Swedes cede only two cities, then they will not resolve the matter without sending them to the sovereign. When the ambassadors had already set off and communicated with the Swedish ambassadors about the time of negotiations, they received a new royal order: “Talk to the ambassadors according to large, lofty measures, and the last one: to the sovereign’s side Narva, Ivangorod, Yam, Koporye, Korela without expense, without money; if they do not agree to cede these cities without money, then nothing can be decided without sending them to the sovereign; if they agree, then conclude an eternal peace without brotherhood.” The Swedish ambassadors announced that they would not cede a single inch of land, not just cities; The Russians answered them: “Our sovereign, having not found his patrimony, the cities of the Livonian and Novgorod lands, why put up with your sovereign? Now it’s up to your sovereign to give us all the cities, and to pay our sovereign for the rise whatever he specifies.”
The importance of Khvorostinin was noted by the English ambassador Giles Fletcher, who was in Moscow in 1588 - 1589: “The Great Voivode, or general, is now usually, in case of war, one of the following four: Prince Feodor Ivanovich Mstislavsky, Prince Ivan Mikhailovich Glinsky, Cherkassky and Trubetskoy. All of them are noble by birth, but do not differ in any special qualities, and only Glinsky has slightly better talents. To replace this deficiency of a governor or general, another is added to him, also as a lieutenant general, far from being so distinguished by birth, but remarkable for his courage and experience in military affairs, so that he manages everything with the approval of the first. Now their main husband, the one most used in wartime, is Prince Dimitri Ivanovich Khvorostinin, an old and experienced warrior who has rendered great services in the wars with the Tatars and Poles. Under the governor and his lieutenant general there are four others who command the entire army, divided between them, and can be called major generals."
In January 1590, the sovereign marched against the Swedish king Johan III to the cities of Rugodiv (Narva), Ivangorod, Yama, a large Russian army advanced to the Swedish borders; the king himself was with him; the commanders were: in the Big Regiment - Prince Fyodor Mstislavsky, who after his father’s exile occupied the first place among the boyars, in the Advanced Regiment - Prince Dmitry Khvorostinin, who was considered the best commander; Under the tsar, in the rank of courtyards, or nearby governors, were Boris Godunov and Fyodor Nikitich Romanov. Formally, the princes Mstislavsky and Trubetskoy stood at the head of the army. Voivode Dmitry Khvorostinin received a rather modest appointment to the advanced regiment. Apparently, this was done to avoid unnecessary local disputes: the main role in the war, judging by the development of events, belonged to Khvorostinin. R.G. Skrynnikov directly stated that the most prominent of the governors, the boyar Prince D.I., actually led the offensive against the Swedes. Khvorostinin. This was indeed the case: it was the Advanced Regiment, where he was a commander, that won the most impressive victories that decided the outcome of the entire campaign.
In Novgorod, the sovereign distributed the regiments: some to go to Finland, beyond the Neva, others to Estonia, to the Baltic Sea; and on January 18, 1590 he himself with the main forces set out for Narva. The campaign was difficult in winter, but on January 27 Russian troops took Yam. In the area of Narva and Ivangorod, a 20,000-strong Swedish corps was concentrated under the command of General Gustav Baner, who covered the approaches to these main fortresses. On January 27, without waiting for the main forces to arrive, Khvorostinin’s Advanced Regiment attacked the Swedes. The stubborn battle lasted from 2 o'clock in the afternoon until the evening; in a heavy battle, the enemy retreated to Narva, where there was poor supply. Baner, leaving the required number of soldiers in the fortress, was forced to retreat at night across the Narova River, to the city of Wesenberg (Rakvere), pursued by the Asian Russian cavalry, abandoning the entire convoy and guns; Among the many prisoners were noble Swedish officials. The path to Ivangorod was open to the Russian army, which arrived on February 2.
During the assault by Russian troops on Narva, the Swedish troops, who had earlier retreated to Rakovor, began to show activity, and at the same time it was ordered to send reinforcements to the barrier. In the Advanced Regiment “in dispatch to Rakovor” the first governor was Prince Dmitry Khvorostinin. The defenders of Narva did not receive outside help, and this decided the fate of the war. The Swedish garrison suffered heavy losses during the assault, which were not possible to replace. While the Russians unhindered devastated Estonia as far as Revel, and Finland as far as Åbo, King Johan III had no more reserves. The Swedish commander in Narva, General Karl Horn, asked for a truce. Consent to negotiations was given, and the shelling stopped.
Days passed, shelling of the city was interspersed with negotiations, the Swedes stood their ground. The situation began to change not in favor of the Russian army. Finally, on February 25, a truce for a period of 1 year was concluded. The hike is over. The success of the winter campaign of 1590 was determined by several factors. Firstly, quick strikes eliminated or blocked Swedish strongholds, from which rear attacks could be delivered to the Russian siege army (Yam, Koporye). Secondly, governor Dmitry Khvorostinin in a field battle defeated the Swedish army covering Ivangorod and Narva, which allowed the main Russian forces to freely approach these fortresses and immediately begin siege work. Thirdly, the “Kolyvan” and “Rakovorskaya” roads were reliably closed (which was done by Khvorostinin), the Swedish garrison in Narva was isolated, it did not receive help. And fourthly, the decisive factor during the siege of Narva was the clear superiority of Russian artillery; it was the shooting from the “outfit” that crushed the defense and forced the Swedes to begin negotiations. Despite the unsuccessful attack on Narva, repulsed with great loss for the Russians, the Swedes saw the impossibility of continuing the war successfully and on February 25 concluded a truce for one year, ceding Yam, Ivangorod and Koporye to the king, promising to cede more (even the entire land of Korelskaya, Narva and other Estonian cities) at the future ambassadorial congress.
Leaving the governor in the three captured fortresses, Tsar Feodor Ivanovich hurried to return to Novgorod and Moscow to celebrate the victory over one of the strong European countries, with which his father did not advise fighting, fearing their superiority in the art of war. In 1595, in Tyavzino, Russian ambassadors signed an “eternal peace” with Sweden, according to which the Swedes returned all the Russian lands they had captured after the Livonian War, including Korela and the district. On August 7, 1591, without waiting for the end of the war with Sweden, the famous commander Dmitry Khvorostinin died, having taken monastic vows under the name Dionysius before his death. The voivode, who stood in parochial terms much lower than his comrades, rose thanks to his military leadership talent and faithful service for the good of the Fatherland to the very top of the military hierarchy. He was the commander of the Great Regiment, led the defense of the southern border, received the rank of boyar (which not all high-born princes were able to achieve), sat “in the big shop” when receiving foreign ambassadors, and was one of ten boyars who were part of the secret nearby royal duma. A takeoff incomprehensible to many contemporaries. No wonder his noble subordinates argued with Dmitry Khvorostinin so many times “about places.”
Thus, Dmitry Khvorostinin played an important role in the formation of the military system with which Russia entered the 17th century, but, unfortunately, remained unknown to many and little mentioned by historians. It is still not customary to talk about him as a great military leader, while he is assigned a supporting role in history, but his achievements require a revision of this position and recognition of the outstanding role of Dmitry Khvorostinin in Russian military art.
The publication of this work is carried out within the framework of information coverage of the All-Russian competition "The Heritage of Ancestors - to the Young." In text format, the work is constantly posted on the MOSKOVIA website -
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Notes
Kargalov V.V. Generals of the X – XVI centuries. – M., 1989. – P. 308, 310.
Veselovsky S.B. Research on the history of the oprichnina. – M., 1963. – P. 235-236.
Fletcher J. About the Russian State. – M., 2002. – P. 59.
Soloviev S.M. Essays. In 18 books. - Book 4. – T. 7: History of Russia since ancient times. – M., 1989. – P. 196.
Kargalov V.V. Decree. Op. – P. 309.
Kargalov V.V. Decree. Op. – P. 310, 321.
Soloviev S.M. Decree. Op. – P. 224.
Fletcher J. Op. Op. – pp. 87-88.
Kargalov V.V. Decree. Op. – P. 321.
Soloviev S.M. Decree. Op. – P. 225.
Kargalov V.V. Decree. Op. – P. 328.
The history of the Middle Ages - as far as we know it from annals and chronicles - consists mainly of wars. Of course, the peoples had a different, peaceful history in that era - the development of the economy, social relations, and culture. And yet, the most important task that any society faces is protection from external enemies.
For medieval Rus', this task was especially difficult: due to its geographical position, it was located on the very border of agricultural Europe and the steppe part of Asia inhabited by nomads. Scientists have long paid attention to this fact. The famous historian of the last century, S. M. Solovyov, listing the most important factors in the history of Rus', noted that throughout its entire history, “Asia does not cease to send out predatory hordes who want to live at the expense of the settled population; it is clear that in the history of the latter one of the main phenomena will be the constant struggle with the steppe barbarians.”
Enslaved by the Mongol-Tatars, sharply reduced in size, Rus', despite their efforts, managed to by the end of the 15th century. create a strong state. With the help of this instrument - or, better said, weapon - the power of foreigners was overthrown.
However, it was too early to think about peace. With the fall of the yoke, three centuries of almost continuous defensive, and finally offensive, war began on the steppe borders. At the same time, the united Russian state waged an equally endless war for the return to its ethnic borders in the west and southwest, for the mastery of the rich lands of Estonia and Livonia and access to the Baltic in the northwest.
In a word, circumstances developed in such a way that war became, as it were, an ordinary, natural state of the country.
All this allows us to think that medieval Rus' had many outstanding commanders. However, this assumption - so convincing in itself - is difficult to confirm with specific materials. Written sources very poorly illuminate the very course of a particular war: the details of the battles, the orders of the leaders of the troops, the balance of forces of the opponents - in a word, everything that makes up the idea of personal military leadership. Usually the chronicles report only the fact itself: a campaign under the command of one, and more often than not several, commanders. The result of the campaign is also known - victory, “draw” or defeat. (However, much less has been written about defeats than about victories.)
Due to all these reasons, among the many princes and boyars who led military enterprises, outstanding commanders have to be literally guessed by indirect signs: the ratio of victories and defeats, popularity among the people, traits of personal courage.
Among those whom we can still confidently recognize as outstanding commanders of their time, the majestic figures of Alexander Nevsky, Daniil Galitsky and Dmitry Donskoy stand out. Their military successes acquired special significance due to the historical circumstances under which they were achieved and the consequences they had for the Russian people.
The names of Alexander Nevsky, Daniil Galitsky and Dmitry Donskoy became symbols of patriotism and military feat in the name of defending the Fatherland.
In our book, it is, of course, impossible to pass over in silence the activities of these three giants. But behind the iconographic face of the “saint” - as well as behind the chased profile of the “great commander” - I would like to see a genuine and unique human face. Only by seeing them as living people, sons of their time, can one feel not ritual, but sincere respect for them, admiration for their military and life feats. Let us note one more point that must be kept in mind when reading the book. Every complex craft - including military craft - in medieval Rus' was hereditary. The lack of textbooks and educational institutions led to the fact that the skills and secrets of the craft were passed on exclusively through personal experience. From an early age, the father accustomed his son to his business, thereby providing him with the opportunity to “get on his feet” over time, feed himself and his family, and occupy a certain position in society.
This is how dynasties of blacksmiths and carpenters, merchants and priests, painters and jewelers were formed. There were also dynasties of military leaders in Rus'. Since the craft of a governor was the privilege of the aristocracy, these dynasties were at the same time the most noble families of the then Russia.
Of course, the sons were not exact repetitions of their fathers. Some were superior to them in the art of the “death game”, others, on the contrary, were inferior. And yet, by tracing the history of some military dynasties - the Shuiskys, the Shchenyatevs, one can try to create a kind of collective image of the Russian commander of the late 15th–16th centuries. It was they, these irreplaceable “sovereign commanders”, whose individuality almost dissolves in the merits of the family, who constituted the flower of the Russian army, who bore on their shoulders the entire burden of the continuous grueling struggle. Forgetting about them, we would turn our military history into a desert, among which the figures of Alexander Nevsky, Daniil Galitsky and Dmitry Donskoy would rise so lonely.
One of the consequences of the emergence of a unified Russian state in the second half of the 15th century. was that the craft of a commander was separated from the craft of a ruler. Dmitry Donskoy was, it seems, the last in a glorious galaxy of rulers-commanders - heirs to the glory of the great warrior Vladimir Monomakh. In the 15th century, Muscovite Rus' developed a type of statesman - a “sovereign” - a cunning and ruthless homebody, a pragmatist alien to the chivalric spirit, a worthy student and successor of the Byzantine basileus and khans of the Golden Horde.
The craft of a commander becomes the property and consolation of representatives of the younger branches of the Moscow princely house, deprived of power, as well as numerous “service princes” who moved to Moscow from neighboring lands subjugated by it. The new capital of the Orthodox world, Moscow willingly received energetic provincials and gave them the opportunity to distinguish themselves in the military field. The only condition for prosperity was obedience. The descendants of free appanage rulers did not find it easy to learn the bitter science of servility, which was also so far from the daring spirit of their profession. Many of them fell into disgrace for disobedience, ending their lives in prison, a distant monastery, or on the chopping block. It was the military aristocracy that was the main source of danger for the growing Moscow autocracy. And therefore her story is full of dramatic pages...
So, let's try to look not only at the glorious victories of ancient Russian commanders, but also at their fates. In them we will see a reflection of the destinies of the country that gave birth to them and its people.
In accordance with the nature of this book, scientific reference material is kept to a minimum. After quotations or provisions requiring reference to the source, numbers are given in parentheses. The first of them is the edition number according to the list of sources and literature located at the end of the book, the second and further are the page numbers. References to the Bible are given according to the traditional division of its text.
Another feature of this book is that ancient Russian texts are translated into modern languages. In this case, we used mainly carefully researched translations from the multi-volume series “Monuments of Literature of Ancient Rus'”, as well as from the book “Stories of Russian Chronicles of the XII-XIV centuries.” (M., 1973). Unfortunately, even the best translation deprives the Old Russian text of many of its artistic merits. In an effort to convey to the reader living Old Russian speech, we present some short and clear fragments of texts without translation, marking them with an asterisk.*
Extinct race
We, the Shuiskys, are standing
With all the land for antiquity, for the church,
For a good building in Rus',
As it happened from our ancestors...
A.K. Tolstoy. "Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich"
One of the most notable Russian aristocratic families, the Shuiskys were descendants of Alexander Nevsky. Their pedigree stretches from the third son of the Neva hero - Prince Andrei Alexandrovich Gorodetsky, who occupied the great reign of Vladimir from 1293 to 1304. Andrei Gorodetsky's grandson, Prince Vasily Mikhailovich Suzdal, was, in turn, the grandfather of Prince Dmitry Konstantinovich of Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod, famous in Russian history - father-in-law Dmitry Donskoy, who together with him raised the banner of the fight against the Horde in the 70s. XIV century
The grandson of Dmitry Konstantinovich Yuri Vasilyevich became the father of the first princes Shuisky. Like many other princely dynasties, they received their nickname, which became a surname, from the name of a small fief, the center of which was the ancient village of Shuya (now a city in the Ivanovo region). It was this senior line of Suzdal princes that gave birth to all the Shuiskys who lived at the end of the 15th - beginning of the 17th centuries.
In addition to the eldest, there was another line of Suzdal princes, which began from another grandson of Dmitry Konstantinovich - Prince Vasily Semenovich. One of the representatives of this line - Prince Vasily Vasilyevich Grebenka - is also named Shuisky in the sources. However, he died childless at the end of the 15th century, and this Shuisky line came to an end with his death.
Let us note that Vasily Grebenka’s brother Ivan Gorbaty became the founder of another famous family, which gave Russia many valiant governors - the Gorbaty princes.
In that era, the history of Rus' was perceived primarily as the history of the ruling dynasty and aristocratic families. Each clan carefully preserved the memory of the merits of its ancestors, of their relations with the Grand Dukes of Moscow. And the representatives of the supreme power themselves had to take into account their nobility and services to Russia of one kind or another. The system of filling military and civil positions in accordance with the position of ancestors at the court of the Moscow Grand Dukes ("localism") weakened, but could not completely refute the meaning of "breed", the special price of "blue blood".
Among the aristocracy of the Moscow state, the Shuiskys always occupied a special position. For a long time they did not want to come to terms with the loss of their inheritance and, in the name of its return, were ready to support Dmitry Shemyaka at one time. And later, after the death of Shemyaka, the Shuiskys preferred to be friends with those who did not want to submit to the government of Vasily the Dark - “Judas,” the “murderer,” as contemporaries called the most insignificant and at the same time the most vile of Kalita’s descendants. In 1456, Prince Vasily Vasilyevich Shuisky, nicknamed Comb, commanded the Novgorod army that went to battle with the army of Vasily the Dark approaching Novgorod. The Battle of Staraya Russa ended in victory for the Muscovites. Shuisky barely managed to escape from their hands. However, the Novgorodians did not consider him guilty of this defeat. Shuisky continued to serve the city until the very moment of its fall. Only on December 28, 1477, when the subordination of Novgorod to Ivan III, in essence, was already a decided matter, V.V. Shuisky “bowed kisses” to the Novgorodians and appeared in the Moscow camp. The “Sovereign of All Rus'” did not settle scores and accepted Shuisky into his court (68, 819, 872). Soon, together with their close relatives, the Gorbaty princes, the Shuiskys took prominent places in the Moscow regiments.
How often, without realizing it, we perceive the history of the Fatherland through literature, we see the past through the eyes of great artists of words! The name "Shuisky" invariably evokes the first scene of Pushkin's tragedy. February 20, 1598 Kremlin chambers... Secret conversation between two aristocrats - princes Shuisky and Vorotynsky. Here is the beginning of the palace intrigue, which ended with the fall of the Godunov house.
"Evil courtier!" - the ardent Vorotynsky calls Shuisky. This is how he appears in Pushkin’s drama, and this is how he remains in our historical memory. The poet did not call the “courtier” by name, and therefore the surname “Shuisky” itself became a common noun, denoting double-mindedness, deceit, lust for power and flattery.
But was it only the ill-fated Tsar Vasily Ivanovich who was given to Russia by the family of the Shuisky princes over the course of two and a half centuries?
The popular idea of the Shuiskys only as “flattering courtiers” is very far from the truth. Indeed, in the 16th century they were constantly at the throne. But that was the tradition of that era. Any aristocrat invariably acted as “one in three persons” - commander, administrator and courtier.
The Shuisky princes - with the exception of Tsar Vasily and his brothers - were, first of all, courageous warriors, defenders of the Russian land, then - grand ducal and royal governors who ruled cities and entire regions of the country, and only lastly - participants in court intrigues, "courtiers".
It is easy to verify this by reading the biographies of the most prominent representatives of the Shuisky family.
One of the largest Russian military leaders of the first third of the 16th century. was Prince Vasily Vasilyevich Shuisky. Like a true warrior, he was a man of few words. This trait in the character of Prince Vasily was so sharp and noticeable that evil tongues gave him a mocking nickname - “Mute.”
Looking ahead, we note that Shuisky’s silence was probably one of the reasons for Grand Duke Vasily III’s special favor towards him. It is known that he really did not like the “meeting” - that is, any objections and refutations from his associates. However, the governor’s reticence also had another side: he was not, as they used to say in the old days, a “dakalshchik,” that is, he did not assent to every word of the “sovereign.” Vasily III was smart enough not to have much confidence in flatterers, and undoubtedly appreciated Shuisky’s restraint in this regard.
In the era when Prince Vasily lived and acted, the son’s career largely depended on his father’s track record. Vasily Fedorovich Shuisky, the father of our hero, was known as a prominent administrator in the era of Ivan III. In the 80s he served as Moscow governor in Novgorod. In the 90s XV century Shuisky Sr. was the prince-governor in Pskov. At the head of the Pskov army, he took part in the campaign of Moscow troops against Lithuania in 1492, and three years later he went against the Swedes (38, 70). In this campaign, in addition to the Pskovites he brought, Novgorodians took part, led by the governor Yakov Zakharyevich and an army sent from Moscow under the command of Prince Daniil Vasilyevich Shchenya (37, 106). The post of Pskov governor was the last for Shuisky: he died in Pskov in 1496.
Vasily Jr., already in his youth, received the position of Novgorod governor. This happened in 1500. Undoubtedly, such succession, common for the Moscow nobility, had considerable practical meaning: the father was preparing his son to inherit his business. Shuisky Sr. passed on to his son his experience, his connections and acquaintances in the conquered, but still restless city. Leaving this position more than once and then returning to it again, Shuisky managed to achieve the main thing: under his leadership, the Novgorodians went not only against their primordial enemies - the Germans, but also on all-Russian campaigns.
Russo-Lithuanian War 1500–1503 exacerbated the situation on the northwestern borders. The Livonian knights, having concluded an alliance with the Grand Duke of Lithuania Alexander Kazimirovich, were actively preparing for the invasion of the Pskov lands. The main events of the war, as Ivan III predicted, unfolded in the Smolensk direction. In July 1500, on the Vedrosha River, the Russian army defeated Prince Konstantin Ostrozhsky.
After this failure, the military activity of the Lithuanians fell sharply. The death of the Polish king John Albrecht on June 17, 1501 and the subsequent struggle for the Polish throne distracted Grand Duke Alexander Kazimirovich for a whole year. Only in the summer of 1502 did he return to Lithuania as the Polish king and again turn to the concerns of the Russian war.
Meanwhile, the Livonians, remaining faithful to their agreement with Lithuania, already in August 1501 moved to Rus'. The campaign was led by the militant master of the Livonian Order, Walter von Plettenberg. Of course, the Order, German cities and the Catholic bishoprics of Estonia and Livonia, while helping Lithuania, pursued primarily their own interests. In addition to the expected trophies and the capture of Pskov volosts, they were inspired by the hope of receiving some border Lithuanian regions from Alexander Kazimirovich as a reward.
Having repelled German attacks on the Pskov land in the summer campaigns of 1501 and 1502, the Novgorod governors set out on a new campaign in December 1502. This time the goal of the campaign was the devastation of Lithuanian lands. As before, Vasily Nemoy and Daniil Shcheney commanded a large regiment. In addition to the large regiment, other traditional divisions of the Russian medieval army are noted in the rank lists of this campaign - the advanced and guard regiments, as well as the left-hand regiment and the right-hand regiment. The regiments were commanded by representatives of aristocratic families known in the history of Russia - Prince Pyotr Ryapolovsky (advanced regiment), Prince Fyodor Prozorovsky (left-hand regiment), Prince Semyon Romodanovsky (guard regiment), as well as people from families of untitled Moscow nobility - Pyotr Zhitov (right-hand regiment ), Mikhail Kolychev (guard regiment) (30, 499).
The military activity of the Russians, as well as the internal problems of the country, forced Alexander Kazimirovich to rush to end the war. On April 2, 1503, a truce was concluded between Russia and Lithuania for a period of six years. Seversk Ukraine, as well as fortresses in the western direction - Dorogobuzh, Belaya and Toropets, came under the rule of Ivan III. On the same day, a six-year truce with Livonia was signed, according to which the parties returned to the pre-war borders and exchanged prisoners.
War of 1500–1503 brought victory to Ivan III. However, both the Order and especially the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which had lost almost a third of its territory, did not consider the results of the war final. Their rulers were waiting for an opportunity to resume military confrontation.
The death of Ivan III gave rise to new hopes among the enemies of Rus'. However, the heir to the formidable “Muscovite,” Grand Duke Vasily Ivanovich, took power with a firm hand and did not allow any dynastic unrest. The new sovereign was merciful to Shuisky.
Already in 1506 he received the highest court rank - boyar. However, the location of the Grand Duke had to be strengthened by zealous service.
The fate of Vasily Nemoy, like any military commander, was full of moving from one place of service to another. In October 1506, his governorship in Novgorod ended. Other lands and other concerns awaited the prince. In the spring of 1507, a new war with Lithuania began. There, after the death of Alexander Kazimirovich on August 20, 1506, his brother Sigismund, who was extremely hostile towards Moscow, came to power. At the same time, the danger of an attack by the Crimean Tatars arose. The former ally of the Moscow sovereign, Khan Muhammad-Girey, sharply changed his position and in the summer of 1507 sent his Murzas to the southern outskirts of Russia. Stable, experienced commanders were sent there from Moscow to fight the Tatars.
In the summer of 1507 we meet Vasily the Nemoy in Serensk, an ancient fortress city between Kaluga and Bryansk. Here was the front line of Russian fortifications facing south. Together with other governors, Shuisky participated in repelling the raid of the Crimean Tatars in August 1507 (38, 70). In the autumn of 1507, when the threat from the south had passed, the troops gathered in the upper reaches of the Oka were sent west to the Lithuanian lands. In this campaign, Shuisky commanded the regiment of his right hand.
In the spring of 1508, internal strife began in Lithuania. Mikhail Glinsky, the largest magnate of the Orthodox faith, spoke out against the Grand Duke of Lithuania and at the same time the King of Poland Sigismund. Moscow governors were sent to help him. The main events took place on the territory of modern Belarus. Glinsky's rebellion was suppressed, and he himself was forced to flee to Moscow. By the autumn of 1508, the Lithuanian army approached the western border of Russia. Vasily III hastily fortified the Smolensk cities.
During these anxious months of spring and summer of 1508, Vasily Nemoy led the reserve army stationed in Vyazma - in the immediate rear of the flaring war. However, in October 1508, an “eternal peace” was concluded between Vasily III and Sigismund. Soon Shuisky was sent to his previous place of service - as governor in Novgorod.
A new aggravation of relations with Lithuania occurred in the fall of 1512. The government of Vasily III made another attempt to return Smolensk. A large army moved there. As before, troops from the northwestern regions of the country were ordered to move south - through Kholm in the direction of Smolensk. During this campaign, Shuisky and the Novgorodians launched an invasion of Lithuanian lands in the Sebezh region (54, 507). The first Smolensk campaign in the winter of 1512–1513. ended without result. In the summer of 1513, Vasily III again moved troops to the upper reaches of the Dnieper. This time Vasily Nemoy and the Novgorodians went to Polotsk through Staraya Russa and Velikiye Luki - at that time one of the key Lithuanian fortresses. This maneuver was intended to pull part of the Lithuanian forces away from Smolensk, the capture of which was the main task facing the Muscovites. There, to Smolensk, having walked with difficulty along forest roads muddy from the autumn rains, Vasily Nemoy and his army appeared at the end of October (38, 71).
But the second siege of Smolensk did not bring success. It seemed like a hopeless cause. However, Vasily III, like his father, never fell into despair due to failures and persistently, methodically continued to achieve his goal. In the summer of 1514, he besieged Smolensk for the third time. And again Shuisky, together with another Novgorod governor, I.G. Morozov, led his Novgorodians five hundred miles away, under the walls of Smolensk. This time, Vasily III instructed him to take a position in Orsha in case of a sudden movement of Sigismund’s troops to help the besieged city. At the end of July, Smolensk surrendered.
To govern the conquered city, an intelligent and managerial governor was needed. Vasily III appointed Shuisky to this post. Extensive experience of serving in such a restless city as Novgorod served as the key to his success in the role of Smolensk governor. Shuisky fully justified the trust of Vasily III. He managed to find out in time about the impending treason: the Smolensk ruler Barsanuphius and a number of local boyars intended to return the city to the rule of Sigismund. Having received the news from Shuisky, Vasily III ordered a quick and harsh reprisal. The traitorous boyars were hanged on the city walls, and the rebellious ruler was sent into captivity in one of the remote northern monasteries (23, 349–350).
Soon Shuisky distinguished himself in another matter. He successfully repelled an attempt by the Lithuanians under the command of Prince K. Ostrozhsky to capture Smolensk with a sudden raid (23, 350). The big war is over. It was replaced by devastating raids by individual Lithuanian and Russian troops on enemy lands. Winter 1514–1515 Vasily Nemoy undertook a raid into the Lithuanian possessions and returned with “full” and booty.
Moscow sovereigns usually did not allow their boyars to linger for a long time in one or another governorship. A long stay in one city led to the fact that the governor began to imagine himself as the master of everything and everyone, and lost his sense of proportion in bribery and arbitrariness. Often this entailed the ruin of the city and the embitterment of the inhabitants. At the same time, the “mobility” of the governor had another reason. The Emperor constantly felt a lack of intelligent, active leaders. Going through his people like a rosary, he tried to find everyone the most suitable place, without violating the fundamental principle of localism - the correspondence between the position and the place that the ancestors of a given person occupied in the Moscow service. It was a kind of puzzle, the solution of which Vasily III thought about almost every day.
The track record of Vasily Nemoy is no exception. Almost every year he received new appointments. Despite his merits, he did not remain the Smolensk governor for long. In 1517, sources report his stay in Vyazma, where he commanded the troops gathered to repel the attacks of the Lithuanians. At this time, Prince K. Ostrozhsky invaded the Russian lands with a large army and besieged Opochka - the southern outpost of the Pskov land, a small fortress in the upper reaches of the Velikaya River. Shuisky, who knew these regions well, received an order to move from Vyazma to the northwest. In Velikiye Luki he united with the army under the command of Prince A.V. Rostovsky and together with him went to Opochka.
Having learned about the approach of a large Russian army, the Lithuanians retreated, failing to take possession of the courageously defended fortress. The Russians received the glory of the victors and the guns abandoned by the enemy during the retreat (54, 508).
In the summer of 1518, Shuisky again served as Novgorod governor. The war with Lithuania continued, although without the same intensity of effort. Vasily Nemoy with the Novgorodians was sent to Polotsk - a familiar road he had already traveled once. Near Polotsk, he met his brother, the Pskov governor Ivan Shuisky, who also came with an army to besiege Polotsk. However, the brothers failed to take the city. Large forces of Lithuanians arrived in time and forced them to retreat. The next year, Shuisky again went to Lithuania, but this time from Vyazma. He was among the governors sent by Vasily III to devastate Lithuanian lands, capture prisoners and trophies.
Shuisky's diligent service was highly appreciated by Vasily III. In 1519, he awarded him the honorary title of Vladimir governor, giving him the right to be called one of the first boyars (38, 71). Significant changes are taking place in his destiny. If previously the prince was entrusted with various military-administrative positions mainly in the western and northwestern directions, then in the 20s. he can always be found in one of the fortified cities on the Oka River. It is no coincidence that Muscovites called the Oka “the belt of the Holy Mother of God.” Like the famous Constantinople relic, it protected the Russian people from sudden invasions of “barbarians.”
The beginning of the “southern” page in the military biography of Vasily Nemoy turned out to be unsuccessful. In the summer of 1521, together with Prince D. F. Belsky, he commanded the troops gathered in Serpukhov and Kashira. Shuisky was appointed only the second governor, ceding overall leadership to the young Velsky. This is understandable: having served for two decades on the northwestern border, he had not yet had time to get used to the situation and features of the war in the Wild Field. Unfortunately, his boss, Prince Belsky, was not strong in matters of the steppe war. Meanwhile, fate was preparing a difficult test for both military leaders...
1521 is one of the most tragic years in Russian history. On the night of June 28, the Crimean Khan Muhammad-Girey, with an army of many thousands, secretly crossed the Oka River and, destroying scattered Russian troops, rushed to Moscow. The appearance of the khan was so unexpected that an unimaginable panic began in the central regions of the country. The Grand Duke himself fled from Moscow and headed towards Volokolamsk. Evil tongues said that, having lost his head from fear, he hid in a haystack for some time. The Novgorod and Pskov governors arrived in time and drove away the Tatars. However, the damage caused by the raid was terrible. Hundreds of villages were burned, tens of thousands of people were killed or taken prisoner.
Having recovered from the fear and humiliation he had experienced, Vasily III ordered an investigation to be launched and to find out whose fault the disaster occurred. Of course, the governors began to blame each other. However, they unanimously named the first culprit the arrogant and imprudent Prince Belsky - their “commander-in-chief.”
After the events of the summer of 1521, Vasily the Nemoy found himself in disgrace. He also had a chance to experience the sovereign's prison (36, 246). However, Vasily III did not want to spoil* relations with his immediate circle. The case, as they say, was “hushed up.” Soon Shuisky was also forgiven. As a warning, he was ordered to kiss the cross for loyalty to the Grand Duke.
In the summer of 1523, Vasily Nemoy took part in the campaign against Kazan, leading the “ship army,” that is, the army traveling on ships along the Volga. The Russians were not yet able to take Kazan, and therefore Vasily III decided to create a reliable springboard for new campaigns against it. Together with the boyar M. Yu. Zakharyin, Shuisky was put in charge of the construction of a new fortress at the mouth of the Sura. Over time, it received the name Vasilsursk.
Vasily's subsequent appointments were related to the defense of the Oka. In 1526–1527 he was the governor of Murom. We also find him there in 1529. In the summer of 1531, Shuisky, among other governors, stood on the Oka between Kolomna and Kashira, and a few months later he was sent with an army to Nizhny Novgorod. In 1533, he again stood with the army in Kolomna (38, 71)... The summer campaign of 1533 was one of the last performances of Vasily the Mute in the military field. The subsequent years of his life were devoted mainly to the concerns of power.
Summing up his more than 30 years of activity as a military leader, we can say that Vasily was an average commander, or, better said, an “average” commander of his time. The scale of military operations carried out under his leadership, as well as their results, are quite modest. However, without shining with brilliant talent, he possessed a number of qualities that Vasily III highly valued. First of all, Shuisky was reliable and thorough. He knew how to gather and lead people in conditions when the discipline of the Russian army was, perhaps, its weakest point.
Without knowing any high-profile victories, Vasily did not allow major defeats. He always preferred a bird in the hand to a pie in the sky. In essence, he was a typical representative of the Moscow “generals” of that time. Generals and organizers like him were no less important for achieving military success than brilliant, heroic personalities like Prince Kholmsky or Daniil Shchenya.
Having finished the story of the military labors of Vasily the Nemoy and postponing until time the story of his participation in palace unrest and dubious elevation at the end of his life, we will try to look over the shoulder of the old governor and see those who invariably stood behind him - ordinary Russian soldiers. The nameless children of Russia, they lay down in its fields like mown grass, and again rose as young shoots of new generations. It is they, these glorious blue-eyed bearded men - sometimes good-natured, sometimes fierce; sometimes greedy, sometimes immensely generous - they carried on their broad shoulders the entire heavy burden of the military enterprises of the Moscow sovereigns. They guarded the gates of Rus' from uninvited guests, but it happened that they themselves showed up at someone else’s house without knocking...
What was the Russian army like in the first third of the 16th century? How did it fight, what weapons did it use? These and some other questions can be answered in the work of a contemporary, and perhaps even an interlocutor of Vasily the Nemoy, Baron Sigismund Herberstein. He visited "Muscovy" as ambassador of the Holy Roman Emperor in 1517 and of the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand in 1526.
Baron Herberstein's "Notes on Muscovy" is distinguished by its thoroughness and accuracy of observations. He correctly noted the characteristic features of the Russian army of that time - the “Tatar” mobility and dexterity of each rider and the entire army as a whole, as well as the unpretentiousness, poverty and endurance of ordinary soldiers. At the same time, with the usual arrogance of foreigners writing about Russia, he is very skeptical about the fighting qualities of the Russian army. Let's leave the baron's conscience to his obvious bias: the military history of Russia in the 16th century. convincingly testifies to the resilience of the “Muscovites” and the experience of their governors.
Ancient Russian cannons.
Muscovite in military attire. German engraving. XVI century Muscovite horseman. German engraving. XVI century
“Every two or three years, the sovereign recruits by region and enumerates the children of the boyars in order to find out their number and how many horses and servants each has. Then... he determines each person’s salary. Those who can, due to their property wealth, serve without salary. Rest is given to them rarely, for the sovereign wages wars either with the Lithuanians, or with the Livonians, or with the Swedes, or with the Kazan Tatars, or even if he does not wage any war, he nevertheless annually, according to custom, places guards in the areas near Tanais (Don. - N.B.) and Oka numbering twenty thousand to curb raids and robberies on the part of the Perekop Tatars. In addition, the sovereign has the habit of calling some in turn from their regions so that they perform all kinds of duties with him in Moscow. In wartime, they They do not send out rotating service, but everyone, both those on pay and those awaiting the sovereign’s mercy, is obliged to go to war.
Their horses are small, barefoot, not shod, the bridle is the lightest, the saddles are adapted in such a way that the riders can turn in all directions and shoot from a bow without any difficulty. Sitting on a horse, they tighten their legs so much that they are not at all able to withstand a strong enough blow from a spear or arrow. Very few resort to spurs, and the majority use a whip, which always hangs on the little finger of their right hand, so that at any time when necessary, they can grab it and use it, and if it comes to weapons again, they leave the whip and it hangs freely from the hand.
Their usual weapons are a bow, arrows, an ax and a stick like a Roman cestus, which is called a flail in Russian, and a bassalyk in Polish. The saber is used by those who are more knowledgeable and richer. The oblong daggers, hanging like knives, are hidden in the sheath so deep that it is difficult to reach the top of the hilt and grab it if necessary. Further, the rein they use is long, with a hole at the end; they tie it to one of the fingers of the left hand, so that they can grab the bow and, drawing it, shoot it without letting go of the reins. Although they hold in their hands a bridle, a bow, a saber, an arrow and a whip at the same time, they deftly and without any difficulty know how to use them.
Some of the more noble ones wear armor, armor made skillfully, as if from scales, and bracers; very few have a helmet pointed upward like a pyramid.
Some wear a silk dress lined with felt to protect them from any blows, and they also use spears. In battles they never used infantry and cannons, because everything they do, whether they attack the enemy, pursue him, or flee from him, they do suddenly and quickly and therefore neither infantry nor cannons can keep up with them.
Having set up a camp, they choose a larger place, where the more noble ones set up tents, while others stick rods into the ground in the form of an arc and cover them with cloaks in order to hide saddles, bows and other things of that kind and to protect themselves from the rain. They drive their horses out to graze, which is why their tents are placed very far from one another; They do not fortify them with carts, or a ditch, or any other barrier, unless by nature this place turns out to be fortified with a forest, rivers or swamps.
Perhaps it will seem surprising to some that they support themselves and their people on such a meager salary, and, as I said above, for such a long time. Therefore, I will briefly talk about their frugality and temperance. Anyone who has six horses, and sometimes more, uses only one of them as a lift or pack horse, on which he carries the necessities of life. First of all, this is crushed millet in a bag two or three spans long, then eight to ten pounds of salted pork, he also has salt in the bag, and, if he is rich, mixed with pepper. In addition, everyone carries with him an axe, a flint, kettles or a copper vat, and if he accidentally ends up in a place where there is no fruit, no garlic, no onions, no game, then he lights a fire, fills the vat with water, throws a full spoon of millet, add salt and cook: contented with such food, both master and slaves live. However, if the master gets too hungry, he destroys it all himself, so that the slaves thus sometimes have an excellent opportunity to fast for two or three whole days. If the gentleman wishes for a luxurious feast, then he adds a small piece of pork. I say this not about the nobility, but about people of average income.
If they have fruits, garlic or onions, then they can easily do without everything else. When preparing to enter battle, they rely more on numbers, on how large an army they will attack the enemy, and not on the strength of the soldiers and the best possible formation of the army; they fight more successfully in long-range combat than in close combat, and therefore try to get around enemy and attack him from the rear.
They have many trumpeters; if, according to their fatherly custom, they all begin to blow their trumpets together and begin to hum, then it sounds somewhat strange and unusual for us. They also have another type of musical instrument, which in their language is called zurna. When they resort to it, they play for about an hour without any respite or drawing in air. Usually they first fill their cheeks with air, and then, as they say, having learned to simultaneously draw in air through their noses, they emit a continuous sound with a trumpet.
Their clothing and bodily decoration are all the same; They wear long caftans, without folds, with very narrow sleeves, almost in the Hungarian style, while Christians wear knots with which they fasten their chests on the right side, and Tatars, whose clothes are very similar, on the left. Their boots are red and very short, so that they do not reach the knees, and their soles are lined with iron nails. Almost everyone’s shirts are decorated at the neck with different colors, they are fastened either with a necklace or with silver or copper gilded buttons, to which pearls are added for decoration” (1, 116–117).
“Truly, every living person is complete vanity. Truly, man walks like a ghost; in vain he fusses, gathers, and does not know who will get it” (Psalm 38:6-7).
Vasily III's first marriage was childless. This threatened unrest and riots following the death of the ruler. Over time, the desire to have an heir became so strong that the Grand Duke decided to violate church canons and part with his first wife, Solomonia Saburova. Having ordered her to be forcibly tonsured as a nun, he soon married the young aristocrat Elena Glinskaya. On August 25, 1530, Elena gave her husband the long-awaited heir - a son named Ivan. The joyful event was immortalized by the construction of the famous Church of the Ascension in the palace village of Kolomenskoye near Moscow. Soon a second son, Yuri, appeared in the family of Vasily III.
The Grand Duke was constantly in a joyful, upbeat mood; while he was away, he wrote letters to his wife, full of tenderness and concern for the children. However, “the ax was already lying by the tree.” In September 1533, during a traditional autumn trip to the monasteries near Moscow, Vasily III fell ill and, after several weeks of illness, died on the night of December 3-4.
Accustomed to relying not so much on institutions as on people in whose loyalty he was confident, Vasily III, shortly before his death, created a kind of guardianship council designed to protect the interests of the heir, the 3-year-old Tsarevich Ivan. According to the historian R. G. Skrynnikov, this council consisted of seven people: the younger brother of Vasily III, appanage prince Andrei Staritsky, boyars M. Yuryev, M. Vorontsov, M. Glinsky, M. Tuchkov; one of the first the Grand Duke introduced Vasily the Nemoy to the guardianship council; he convinced the Grand Duke to trust his younger brother, Prince Ivan Shuisky (57, 9).
The seven executors of Vasily III soon came into sharp conflict with both the Boyar Duma, irritated by their special position, and with the heir’s mother, Elena Glinskaya. The vicissitudes of this struggle are not directly related to the theme of our book. Let us only note that the power-hungry Elena Glinskaya, with the help of her favorite Prince Ivan Ovchina-Obolensky, managed to get rid of the most influential guardians: Mikhail Glinsky and Andrei Staritsky died in a Moscow prison.
The Shuisky brothers, as well as Yuryev and Tuchkov, compromised with Elena Glinskaya and, recognizing her as ruler, retained a prominent position at court. However, in the last year and a half of Elena’s reign, both of them found themselves out of work.
With the death of Elena Glinskaya on April 3, 1538, boyar strife flared up with renewed vigor. Now it is no longer possible to establish what lay behind this enmity: disputes on important issues in the life of the country, defending one’s own “truth” or ordinary wounded pride. Be that as it may, the Shuiskys had to “beat in order not to be beaten.” Vasily Nemoy fought with his usual thoroughness - and invariably won. One by one, he sent his enemies to prison, exile, or even to a “better world.”
The old governor could not resist the “demon of vanity.” Feeling like the master of the situation, he decided to become related to the grand ducal house and on June 6, 1538, he married Ivan IV’s cousin, Princess Anastasia Petrovna. She was the daughter of the baptized Tatar "prince" Peter - son-in-law of Ivan III (54, 509). Following this, he moved to live in the empty house of Prince Andrei Staritsky (57, 16).
But Shuisky was not destined to live in someone else’s mansion for long, enjoying the glory of the all-powerful guardian of the young sovereign. He soon fell ill and died in November 1538, leaving no male offspring.
The biography of Vasily the Nemoy can serve as a kind of measure for the deeds and merits of other Shuiskys, known in the 16th century.
Vasily’s younger brother, Prince Ivan Vasilyevich Shuisky, followed the same path through life. However, as a person he was smaller than Vasily the Mute and therefore did not gain his fame and ranks. In the first third of the 16th century. he was the Pskov governor, a commander in many campaigns. In the mid-30s. following his older brother, Ivan approaches the throne itself, participates in palace feuds, while showing much more cruelty and malice than Vasily. After the death of his older brother, Ivan became the heir to his power. In the court struggle, he knew ups and downs, and in moments of danger he acted boldly and daringly. Fate was favorable to Ivan: he died in his own bed on May 14, 1542.
A prominent place among the Moscow nobility of that era was occupied by Vasily the Nemoy's second cousins - Ivan Mikhailovich Shuisky, nicknamed Pleten, and his younger brother Andrei Mikhailovich, nicknamed Chestokol. Both of them, in their youth, in 1528, fell into disgrace because of their intention to go into the service of Vasily III’s brother, appanage prince Yuri Dmitrovsky. However, Ivan the Terrible's father was prudent. The Shuisky brothers were soon released “on bail” to their well-wishers and relatives (36, 315). They more than once served as governors on the southern and south-eastern border, but a few years later they again ended up in jail for a reason unknown to us. The brothers were released only after the death of Vasily III.
After the death of Elena Glinskaya, Pleten and Chestokol, thanks to the high position of Vasily Nemoy, quickly “went uphill.” However, the fates of the brothers turned out differently - in accordance with the character of each. Ivan Pleten was a brave and successful commander. War and camp life were his element. In 1535–1547 He was almost constantly in the army: in 1540 he commanded an army sent to Livonia, in 1542 he guarded the steppe border, in 1544 he was the first commander in the war with the Kazan Tatars.
Knowing Ivan Shuisky as a military commander far from palace intrigues, Ivan IV did not harbor enmity towards him. After his coronation in 1547, he gave the governor the high court rank of butler (54, 512). In this capacity, he began to appear at ambassadorial receptions and various celebrations. However, the military field was still Ivan’s favorite pastime. He participated in many campaigns as the main character - the first commander of a large regiment. Ivan Pleten died in 1559, not living to see the terrible years of the oprichnina.
Another brother, Andrei Chestokol, was more inclined to participate in the palace struggle. For this tendency, he ended up in prison not only under Vasily III, but also under Elena Glinskaya. After her death, he was released and was sent by his relatives to responsible service - as governor in Pskov. In this position, he showed such exorbitant greed that he was soon recalled to Moscow (54, 507).
After the death of Ivan Vasilyevich Shuisky, Andrei Chestokol tried to take his place at the throne. However, he failed to master the situation and decided to “go into the shadows.” But in the political game of the 16th century, the usual price for defeat was life. At the end of 1543, 13-year-old Ivan IV - no doubt trained by his mentors from among the Shuiskys' enemies - ordered Prince Andrei to be captured and executed without trial. Ivan IV entrusted the role of executioners to the palace hounds. The body of Prince Andrey, whom they killed, was taken to Suzdal and buried there in the Shuisky family cemetery (63, 177).
The next generation of Shuiskys also consisted mainly of courageous governors. One of them was the son of the executed Andrei Shuisky - Ivan. Fleeing from the wrath of the tsar and the revenge of the boyars who hated his father, Ivan - then still a child - had to flee from Moscow. According to the Shuisky family legend, preserved by one of the chroniclers, Ivan was saved by the devotion of his servant-educator (“uncle”). He secretly took the boy to Beloozero. There they both hid, earning their living by peasant labor. Subsequently, the uncle threw himself at the feet of the king when he was on a pilgrimage in the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, and begged forgiveness for his pupil (63, 243).
Let us not destroy the poetic charm of this story with doubt. Be that as it may, the son of the disgraced boyar was taken into the royal service and took up the military craft familiar to the Shuiskys. It is known that in 1558 he was a commander in the regiments stationed in Dedilov, on the Oka. In subsequent years, he can constantly be found among the governors operating on the Livonian front.
The famous historian S. B. Veselovsky noted a paradoxical fact: despite the fact that the Shuiskys belonged to the highest aristocracy, that one of them became the very first victim of the sovereign’s hounds-executioners, they, even in the darkest years of the oprichnina, “enjoyed the exclusive favor of the tsar” (31, 161). As if having had enough of the execution of Andrei Shuisky, Ivan IV did not touch a single representative of this family during his entire bloody reign.
At the height of the oprichnina, Ivan Shuisky received the rank of boyar and continued to correct responsible military services. Death found the brave Ivan Shuisky - the father of the future "boyar king" Vasily Shuisky - on the battlefield, under the walls of Revel in 1573 (63, 243).
Pyotr Ivanovich Shuisky, the nephew of Vasily the Nemoy, in his youth also became involved in the court struggle. However, since 1539 he has also been performing in the military field. A participant in the famous campaign against Kazan in 1552, he was appointed one of the five “sovereign governors” in the newly built Sviyazhsk and stayed there until 1558, when he was recalled and sent to the Livonian War. There he distinguished himself during the capture of the Viljan fortress (the modern city of Viljandi in Estonia). One of the chroniclers of the 16th century reported on this act of Shuisky in the following words: “In the summer of 1559. That same summer, the governor Prince Ivan Fedorovich Mstislavsky and Prince Peter Shuisky and his comrades took the Livonian city of Viljan and took the old master there and sent him to the Grand Duke.” (63, 228). Shuisky also acted successfully during the capture of Dorpat, and then during its defense from the advancing Germans. During the first five years of the Livonian War - and this was a period of success for Russian weapons - Shuisky was constantly at the center of events.
After the capture of Polotsk by Russian troops (February 15, 1563), Shuisky led the repulsion of Lithuanian attempts to return the fortress. The following year, he received an order from Ivan the Terrible to set out from Polotsk and, joining with the army coming from Smolensk, move deep into the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
The famous philosopher-prince Vladimir Monomakh advised his children: “Do not take off your weapons in a hurry, without looking around out of laziness, because suddenly a person dies.” Forgetting the warning of a wise ancestor, Shuisky lost not only his military glory, but also his head in this unfortunate campaign. Not far from Orsha on the Ule River, Shuisky’s army was suddenly attacked by the Lithuanians. Taken by surprise and not ready for battle, the Russian army was defeated. Shuisky himself, having lost his horse in the battle, came on foot to the neighboring village. Having identified him as a Moscow governor, the peasants robbed him and then drowned him in a well. The body of the Russian commander-in-chief was found by the victors.
As a sign of his triumph, the Lithuanian voivode Nikolai Radziwill brought the ashes of Shuisky to Vilna, where he was buried with honors in the church, near the grave of the unfortunate daughter of Ivan III Elena - the wife of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Alexander Kazimirovich (63, 242).
Ivan Petrovich Shuisky, the son of the “great governor” killed near Orsha, gained fame among his contemporaries and remained in the memory of posterity as the leader of the heroic defense of Pskov from the Poles in 1581–1582. However, in addition to this act, he had many military merits.
At the beginning of his military career, in 1563, he took part in the victorious Polotsk campaign of Ivan IV. Two years later, Shuisky acted on the Oka River against the Crimean Tatars, and in 1566 he was appointed governor of Serpukhov. Soon he received a new assignment - to the Dankov fortress (now the city of Dankov in the north of the Lipetsk region) (54, 513). There he was bitterly remembered in the autumn of 1571, when the army of many thousands of the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey, having broken through the defense line of southern Russia, suddenly appeared near Moscow itself.
During these tragic days, Shuisky was on the southern border. It is known that he let Moscow know ahead of time about the approach of the Tatars. The success of their breakthrough could least of all be blamed on him: the khan passed through the Russian defense system west of Kaluga, hundreds of miles from the places where Shuisky stood with his detachment.
The most important military operations on the southern and eastern borders of the Russian state. XVI century
In 1572, Shuisky was appointed governor in Kashira, one of the key fortresses on the Oka River. From here he went with an army to Serpukhov to repel the Crimeans who had once again invaded Rus'. In this campaign, which ended with the defeat of the Tatars at the Battle of Molodi, Shuisky, who commanded a guard regiment, managed to put to flight the advanced enemy detachments in the battle at Senkin Ford on the Oka River (43, 101). However, he could not stop the entire horde that arrived. Having retreated, he soon fought with the Tatars at Molodi under the leadership of Vorotynsky. Ivan IV noticed a capable governor and in 1573 sent him to the Livonian front, where the situation became more and more alarming for the Russians. Having again distinguished himself in battle, the following year he received the post of second governor in Pskov, where he remained with short breaks until 1584.
It is noteworthy that Ivan IV, undoubtedly remembering the Shuiskys’ long-standing ties with this city, appointed Prince V.F. Skopin-Shuisky as the first Pskov governor at that troubled time. The Skopin family branched off from the family tree of the Shuisky princes at the beginning of the 16th century. Its ancestor was Vasily the Nemoy's second cousin, Ivan Vasilyevich Shuisky, who bore the nickname "Oskopa".
As a Pskov governor, Shuisky went to Livonia in 1577, and the next year, in anticipation of a Crimean raid, he was sent to the southern border, to the Oka. Returning to Pskov, in 1579, he gathered a new army and hurried to the aid of Polotsk, besieged by the Poles (54, 513).
Meanwhile, the hour of difficult trials was approaching for Shuisky, when both the glory and the very life of the prince depended primarily on the courage of the Pskovites. Despite the fact that our hero was listed as only the second governor in Pskov, in fact it was he who became the main organizer of the city’s defense from the troops of the Polish king Stefan Batory in the fall of 1581.
It was no coincidence that Ivan IV placed special trust in Shuisky and entrusted him with full power in the besieged city (13, 415). The Tsar understood that the fate of the entire 25-year war would depend on the outcome of the struggle for Pskov. Meanwhile, the king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Stefan Batory - an energetic and experienced commander - in the late 70s. won one victory after another. On August 31, 1579, he took Polotsk, and a year later - Velikiye Luki. At the same time, the Swedes began active actions against Russia. In the event of the fall of Pskov, Russia found itself on the verge of a shameful defeat. She was threatened with the loss of her ancestral northwestern lands. For all his oddities and follies, Ivan IV had a good understanding of people. In any case, he was able to see in Shuyskaya exactly the kind of governor that Pskov needed then - a man who was trusted by the residents of the city and who was completely devoted to the Fatherland.
On August 26, 1581, a huge army under the command of Batory himself approached Pskov. Realizing that this campaign would decide the outcome of the entire war, the king gathered about 100 thousand soldiers under his banner. The army included 40 thousand mounted Polish nobles and about 60 thousand mercenaries of different nationalities. Meanwhile, Shuisky had only 15–20 thousand soldiers in Pskov - nobles, archers and citizen militias.
The Moscow government and Pskov governors took care to supply the city with everything necessary to successfully repel the enemy: cannons, cannonballs, gunpowder, food. The Pskov fortress was one of the best in Russia. It had four defensive lines - Krom, Dovmontov, Middle and Big City. Its western side was protected by the Velikaya River and the coastal hill. Therefore, the walls here were wooden, while in all other lines they were stone. Shortly before the arrival of Batory, they were carefully repaired and strengthened. Anticipating the possibility of a breach in the outer wall, Shuisky ordered a line of wooden fortifications to be built along it on the inside.
Russia has always been rich in outstanding commanders and naval commanders.
1. Alexander Yaroslavich Nevsky (ca. 1220 - 1263). - commander, at the age of 20 he defeated the Swedish conquerors on the Neva River (1240), and at 22 he defeated the German “dog knights” during the Battle of the Ice (1242)
2. Dmitry Donskoy (1350 - 1389). - commander, prince. Under his leadership, the greatest victory was won on the Kulikovo field over the hordes of Khan Mamai, which was an important stage in the liberation of Rus' and other peoples of Eastern Europe from the Mongol-Tatar yoke.
3. Peter I - Russian Tsar, an outstanding commander. He is the founder of the Russian regular army and navy. He showed high organizational skills and talent as a commander during the Azov campaigns (1695 - 1696) and in the Northern War (1700 - 1721). During the Persian campaign (1722 - 1723) under the direct leadership of Peter in the famous Battle of Poltava (1709), the troops of the Swedish king Charles XII were defeated and captured.
4. Fyodor Alekseevich Golovin (1650 - 1706) - count, general - field marshal, admiral. Companion of Peter I, greatest organizer, one of the founders of the Baltic Fleet
5 Boris Petrovich Sheremetyev (1652 - 1719) - count, general - field marshal. Member of the Crimean, Azov. He commanded the army in the campaign against the Crimean Tatars. In the battle of Eresphere, in Livonia, a detachment under his command defeated the Swedes and defeated Schlippenbach's army at Hummelshof (5 thousand killed, 3 thousand captured). The Russian flotilla forced the Swedish ships to leave the Neva for the Gulf of Finland. In 1703 he took Noteburg, and then Nyenschanz, Koporye, Yamburg. In Estland Sheremetev B.P. Wesenberg occupied. Sheremetev B.P. besieged Dorpat, which surrendered in 13 IL 1704. During the Astrakhan uprising, Sheremetev B.P. was sent by Peter I to suppress it. In 1705 Sheremetev B.P. took Astrakhan.
6 Alexander Danilovich Menshikov (1673-1729) - His Serene Highness Prince, associate of Peter I. Generalissimo of the naval and land forces. Participant in the Northern War with the Swedes, the battle of Poltava.
7. Pyotr Aleksandrovich Rumyantsev (1725 - 1796) - count, general - field marshal. Participant in the Russian-Swedish war, the Seven Years' War. His biggest victories were won during the first Russian-Turkish war (1768 - 1774), especially in the battles of Ryabaya Mogila, Larga and Kagul and many other battles. The Turkish army was defeated. Rumyantsev became the first holder of the Order of St. George, 1st degree, and received the title of Transdanubian.
8. Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov (1729-1800) - His Serene Highness Prince of Italy, Count of Rymnik, Count of the Holy Roman Empire, Generalissimo of the Russian land and naval forces, Field Marshal of the Austrian and Sardinian troops, Grandee of the Kingdom of Sardinia and Prince of the Royal Blood (with the title “cousin” King"), holder of all Russian and many foreign military orders awarded at that time.
He was never defeated in any of the battles he fought. Moreover, in almost all these cases he convincingly won despite the numerical superiority of the enemy.
he took the impregnable fortress of Izmail by storm, defeated the Turks at Rymnik, Focsani, Kinburn, etc. The Italian campaign of 1799 and victories over the French, the immortal crossing of the Alps was the crown of his military leadership.
9. Fedor Fedorovich Ushakov (1745-1817) - an outstanding Russian naval commander, admiral. The Russian Orthodox Church canonized Theodore Ushakov as a righteous warrior. He laid the foundations for new naval tactics, founded the Black Sea Navy, talentedly led it, winning a number of remarkable victories in the Black and Mediterranean Seas: in the Kerch naval battle, in the battles of Tendra, Kaliakria, etc. Ushakov’s significant victory was the capture of the island of Corfu in February 1799 city, where the combined actions of ships and land landings were successfully used.
Admiral Ushakov fought 40 naval battles. And they all ended in brilliant victories. People called him “Navy Suvorov”.
10. Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov (1745 - 1813) - famous Russian commander, Field Marshal General, His Serene Highness Prince. Hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, full holder of the Order of St. George. He fought against the Turks, Tatars, Poles, and French in various positions, including Commander-in-Chief of armies and troops. Formed light cavalry and infantry that did not exist in the Russian army
11. Mikhail Bogdanovich Barclay de Tolly (1761-1818) - prince, outstanding Russian commander, field marshal general, minister of war, hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, full holder of the Order of St. George. He commanded the entire Russian army at the initial stage of the Patriotic War of 1812, after which he was replaced by M. I. Kutuzov. In the foreign campaign of the Russian army of 1813-1814, he commanded the united Russian-Prussian army as part of the Bohemian Army of the Austrian Field Marshal Schwarzenberg.
12. Pyotr Ivanovich Bagration (1769-1812) - prince, Russian infantry general, hero of the Patriotic War of 1812. Descendant of the Georgian royal house of Bagration. The branch of the Kartalin princes Bagrations (ancestors of Peter Ivanovich) was included in the number of Russian-princely families on October 4, 1803, when Emperor Alexander I approved the seventh part of the “General Armorial
13. Nikolai Nikolaevich Raevsky (1771-1829) - Russian commander, hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, cavalry general. During thirty years of impeccable service, he participated in many of the largest battles of the era. After his feat at Saltanovka, he became one of the most popular generals in the Russian army. The fight for the Raevsky battery was one of the key episodes of the Battle of Borodino. When the Persian army invaded Georgia in 1795, and, fulfilling its obligations under the Treaty of Georgievsk, the Russian government declared war on Persia. In March 1796, the Nizhny Novgorod regiment, as part of the corps of V. A. Zubov, set off on a 16-month campaign to Derbent. In May, after ten days of siege, Derbent was taken. Together with the main forces, he reached the Kura River. In difficult mountain conditions, Raevsky showed his best qualities: “The 23-year-old commander managed to maintain complete battle order and strict military discipline during the grueling campaign.”
14. Alexey Petrovich Ermolov (1777-1861) - Russian military leader and statesman, participant in many major wars that the Russian Empire waged from the 1790s to the 1820s. General of Infantry. General of Artillery. Hero of the Caucasian War. In the campaign of 1818 he supervised the construction of the Grozny fortress. Under his command were the troops sent to pacify the Avar Khan Shamil. In 1819, Ermolov began construction of a new fortress - Sudden. In 1823 he commanded military operations in Dagestan, and in 1825 he fought with the Chechens.
15. Matvey Ivanovich Platov (1753-1818) - count, cavalry general, Cossack. Participated in all wars of the late 18th - early 19th centuries. Since 1801 - Ataman of the Don Cossack Army. He took part in the battle of Preussisch-Eylau, then in the Turkish war. During the Patriotic War, he first commanded all the Cossack regiments on the border, and then, covering the retreat of the army, had successful dealings with the enemy near the towns of Mir and Romanovo. During the retreat of the French army, Platov, relentlessly pursuing it, inflicted defeats on it at Gorodnya, Kolotsky Monastery, Gzhatsk, Tsarevo-Zaimishch, near Dukhovshchina and when crossing the Vop River. For his merits he was elevated to the rank of count. In November, Platov captured Smolensk from battle and defeated the troops of Marshal Ney near Dubrovna. At the beginning of January 1813, he entered Prussia and besieged Danzig; in September he received command of a special corps, with which he participated in the battle of Leipzig and, pursuing the enemy, captured about 15 thousand people. In 1814, he fought at the head of his regiments during the capture of Nemur, Arcy-sur-Aube, Cezanne, Villeneuve.
16. Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev (1788-1851) - Russian naval commander and navigator, admiral, holder of the Order of St. George IV class and discoverer of Antarctica. Here in 1827, commanding the warship Azov, M.P. Lazarev took part in the Battle of Navarino. Fighting with five Turkish ships, he destroyed them: he sank two large frigates and one corvette, burned the flagship under the flag of Tagir Pasha, forced an 80-gun battleship to run aground, after which he lit and blew it up. In addition, the Azov, under the command of Lazarev, destroyed the flagship of Muharrem Bey. For his participation in the Battle of Navarino, Lazarev was promoted to rear admiral and awarded three orders at once (Greek - "Commander's Cross of the Savior", English - Baths and French - St. Louis, and his ship "Azov" received the St. George flag.
17. Pavel Stepanovich Nakhimov (1802-1855) - Russian admiral. Under the command of Lazarev, M.P. committed in 1821-1825. circumnavigation of the world on the frigate "Cruiser". During the voyage he was promoted to lieutenant. In the Battle of Navarino, he commanded a battery on the battleship "Azov" under the command of Lazarev M.P. as part of the squadron of Admiral L.P. Heyden; for distinction in the battle he was awarded the Order of St. on December 21, 1827. George IV class for No. 4141 and promoted to lieutenant commander. In 1828 took command of the corvette Navarin, a captured Turkish ship that previously bore the name Nassabih Sabah. During the Russian-Turkish War of 1828–29, commanding a corvette, he blockaded the Dardanelles as part of the Russian squadron. During the Sevastopol defense of 1854-55. took a strategic approach to the defense of the city. In Sevastopol, although Nakhimov was listed as the commander of the fleet and port, from February 1855, after the sinking of the fleet, he defended, by appointment of the commander-in-chief, the southern part of the city, leading the defense with amazing energy and enjoying the greatest moral influence on soldiers and sailors, who called him “father.” -a benefactor."
18. Vladimir Alekseevich Kornilov (1806-1855) - vice admiral (1852). Participant in the Battle of Navarino in 1827 and the Russian-Turkish War of 1828-29. From 1849 - chief of staff, from 1851 - de facto commander of the Black Sea Fleet. He advocated the re-equipment of ships and the replacement of the sailing fleet with steam. During the Crimean War - one of the leaders of the Sevastopol defense.
19. Stepan Osipovich Makarov (1849 - 1904) - He was the founder of the theory of unsinkability of a ship, one of the organizers of the creation of destroyers and torpedo boats. During the Russian-Turkish War of 1877 - 1878. carried out successful attacks on enemy ships with pole mines. He made two trips around the world and a number of Arctic voyages. Skillfully commanded the Pacific squadron during the defense of Port Arthur in the Russian-Japanese War of 1904 - 1905.
20. Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov (1896-1974) - The most famous Soviet commander is generally recognized as the Marshal of the Soviet Union. The development of plans for all major operations of united fronts, large groupings of Soviet troops and their implementation took place under his leadership. These operations always ended victoriously. They were decisive for the outcome of the war.
21. Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky (1896-1968) - an outstanding Soviet military leader, Marshal of the Soviet Union, Marshal of Poland. Twice Hero of the Soviet Union
22. Ivan Stepanovich Konev (1897-1973) - Soviet commander, Marshal of the Soviet Union, twice Hero of the Soviet Union.
23. Leonid Aleksandrovich Govorov (1897-1955) - Soviet commander, Marshal of the Soviet Union, Hero of the Soviet Union
24. Kirill Afanasyevich Meretskov (1997-1968) - Soviet military leader, Marshal of the Soviet Union, Hero of the Soviet Union
25. Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko (1895-1970) - Soviet military leader, Marshal of the Soviet Union, twice Hero of the Soviet Union. In May 1940 - July 1941 People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR.
26. Fyodor Ivanovich Tolbukhin (1894 - 1949) - Soviet military leader, Marshal of the Soviet Union, Hero of the Soviet Union
27. Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov (1900-1982) - Soviet military leader, Marshal of the Soviet Union, during the Great Patriotic War - commander of the 62nd Army, which especially distinguished itself in the Battle of Stalingrad. 2nd Hero of the USSR.
28. Andrei Ivanovich Eremenko (1892-1970) - Marshal of the Soviet Union, Hero of the Soviet Union. One of the most prominent commanders of the Great Patriotic War and the Second World War in general.
29. Radion Yakovlevich Malinovsky (1897-1967) - Soviet military leader and statesman. Commander of the Great Patriotic War, Marshal of the Soviet Union, from 1957 to 1967 - Minister of Defense of the USSR.
30. Nikolai Gerasimovich Kuznetsov (1904-1974) - Soviet naval figure, Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union, headed the Soviet Navy (as People's Commissar of the Navy (1939-1946), Minister of the Navy (1951-1953 ) and Commander-in-Chief)
31. Nikolai Fedorovich Vatutin (1901-1944) - army general, Hero of the Soviet Union, belongs to the galaxy of the main commanders of the Great Patriotic War.
32. Ivan Danilovich Chernyakhovsky (1906-1945) - an outstanding Soviet military leader, army general, twice Hero of the Soviet Union.
33. Pavel Alekseevich Rotmistrov (1901-1982) - Soviet military leader, Hero of the Soviet Union, Chief Marshal of the Armored Forces, Doctor of Military Sciences, Professor.
And this is only a part of the commanders who are worthy of mention.
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