The Church of St. Nicholas, popularly known as the Great Church, is the most ...
The Battle of Kulikovo encouraged the Russian people in the struggle against the Tatars, taught them to defeat the formidable khans of the Golden Horde, but not yet rid our land of Tatar rule. After Mamai, Khan Tokhtamysh began to rule the Horde, who wanted to take revenge on Dmitry Donskoy for his glorious victory and unexpectedly invaded the Russian land with strong Tatar hordes. Before grand Duke managed to gather an army, Tokhtamysh had already appeared under the walls of Moscow, took Moscow by deception and devastated it terribly, robbed it and left with many prisoners. In order to save the Russian land from such devastation for the future, the Grand Duke again undertook to regularly pay tribute to Tokhtamysh. Thus, he managed to settle his relationship with Tokhtamysh. But soon after the death of Dmitry Donskoy, a new terrible thunderstorm began to approach the Russian land from the Asian steppes. There, at the end of the XIV century, another powerful conqueror appeared, nicknamed Tamerlane. Having conquered many Asian kingdoms, Tamerlane then conquered Persia and led his huge hordes to the mouths of the Volga along the western shores of the Caspian Sea. From here in 1395 he sent Tokhtamysh to the Khan of the Golden Horde to demand obedience and tribute. Tokhtamysh, instead of answering, opposed him with the entire Horde, but was defeated.
When Moscow learned that Tokhtamysh had been defeated by Tamerlane and his army was scattered, everyone was delighted, thinking that Tamerlane would again retire to the Asian steppes. But to the horror of all Russia, the formidable conqueror moved from the mouths of the Volga to the north, and his hordes soon appeared on the Volga, in the Saratov steppes. Then Tamerlane approached Yelets, took him, ravaged him, burned him out and camped near him, intending to move further.
It was only then that everyone realized that the Russian land was to endure new disasters. Everyone knew that about half a million nomads of different tribes were going with Tamerlane to Russia, and everyone was waiting for death. There remained only hope for God's mercy, and everyone rushed to the churches to bring repentance on the eve of imminent death and pray to God for the salvation of the Russian land. The young Grand Duke Vasily Dmitrievich gathered an army, summoned the governors who fought under the banner of his father Dmitry Donskoy, on the Kulikovo field, and began to confer with them and with the boyars. At this council, it was decided that the grand ducal army should stand at the turn of the Moscow principality, near Kolomna, and here wait for the enemy.
Having made such a decision and entrusting the protection of the capital to his uncle Vladimir the Brave, Grand Duke Vasily moved with an army to Kolomna and there awaited news of the approach of the Tamerlane hordes.
At this time, God instilled a good idea in Grand Duke Vasily Dmitrievich: to calm the alarmed inhabitants of Moscow by transferring to the capital the ancient miraculous icon of the Mother of God, once brought to Vladimir by the prince. The Grand Duke wrote to Metropolitan Cyprian in Moscow and asked him to send him to Vladimir for the icon. The Metropolitan hastened to fulfill the wish of the Grand Duke, and an honorary embassy of the highest clergy and grand-ducal boyars went to Vladimir. The miraculous icon was taken from the Vladimir Assumption Cathedral and solemnly carried to Moscow. This procession was a touching sight! Countless multitudes of people came out from everywhere on the road, everyone fell on their knees before the icon, everyone cried out to her with tears: “Mother of God! Save the Russian land! " All of Moscow came out to meet the icon many miles from the city. As soon as the icon marching towards Moscow appeared in the distance, everyone fell on their faces before it with tears of joy and quiet hope in its miraculous power.
Less than two weeks have passed since the day when the icon of the Vladimir Mother of God was solemnly brought to Moscow and placed in the Moscow Dormition Cathedral, when the good news came from Kolomna to Moscow.Tamerlane turned his hordes south from Yelets and hastily departed from the Russian borders!
The ancient chroniclers have preserved a marvelous tradition. They say that on the very day and hour when Moscow residents met miraculous icon Vladimirskaya, Tamerlane dozed in his tent under Yelets and had a terrible dream. He imagined a high mountain, which with its top was hidden in the clouds. Saints in shining vestments with golden rods in their hands descended from this mountain, and above them in radiant radiance marched the Heavenly Lady, surrounded by the darkness of formidable warriors, who all at once rushed to Tamerlane.
In awe, he woke up from a dream, gathered his nobles and began to ask him to interpret the meaning of the dream. Some of the nobles explained to Tamerlane: "The Heavenly Lady, whom you saw in a dream, is none other than the Mother of God, the protector of Christians." "If so, then we cannot defeat them!" - Tamerlane exclaimed and ordered his hordes to immediately withdraw from the borders of Russia.
When the good news of the removal of Tamerlane's hordes reached Kolomna, the Grand Duke thanked God for the mercy shown to the Russian land, dismissed the army and hurried to Moscow with his retinue. Upon his return to Moscow, Vasily Dmitrievich erected a stone church of the Mother of God and a monastery at the very place where the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God was greeted by the Metropolitan, clergy and citizens of Moscow. Since the same year 1395, the Russian Church has set for eternal times to celebrate the feast of the Meeting of the Mother of God on August 26 in memory of the fact that the Russian land was then obliged to the grace of God for salvation from the terrible invasion of Tamerlane. The monastery, built on the meeting place of the icon, was named Sretensky.
If it were not for the struggle for hegemony between the Russian principalities, Moscow, perhaps, was able to free itself from the Mongol yoke a hundred years earlier.
Power over the world
However, from the middle of the XIV century, the Mongols began to lose their dominance over the world, and the number of victims and the scale of destruction that accompanied this process were approximately the same as a century earlier - during the conquests of Genghis Khan. First, the power of the Genghisids in Iran collapsed, then the expulsion of the Mongol Yuan dynasty from China began.
The Golden Horde also plunged into a deep crisis. Here the struggle for the khan's throne intensified, the negative consequences of which were aggravated by the plague epidemic and natural disasters. Sometimes the Horde had two khans at once, each of whom claimed the supreme power, but actually controlled only a part of Jochi's Ulus. In the 1370s, in the western part of the Golden Horde (west of the Volga), the temnik Mamai (1335-1380) seized power. He did not belong to the family of Genghis Khan and had no rights to the khan's throne. Therefore, Mamai ruled on behalf of one or another Chingizid, whom he himself proclaimed khan, and after a while he replaced with another. In such a situation, the Russian princes - the vassals of the Horde - stopped regularly paying tribute. And the Moscow prince Dmitry Donskoy (1350-1389) even dared to an armed conflict with the ruler of a good third of Ulus Jochi. At the same time, the West Russian lands fell under the rule of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and then became part of it, finally getting out of the control of the khans.
The power of the Mongol rulers in Central Asia also weakened, due to which in the Maverannahr region (between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers with the center in Samarkand) a ruler appeared, who, like Mamai, kept the local khan with him as a puppet and ruled arbitrarily on his behalf. He was not a descendant of Genghis Khan, but he looked like him, for he had an iron will, a brilliant flair for a commander and a heart ruthless to enemies. It was Timur (1336-1405).
Sakhibkiran
Timur came from a noble family of the Turkic-Mongolian tribe Barlas. Officially, he was content with the title of Emir, but flatterers called him Sahibkiran, that is, "born under a lucky star." However, in reality, Timur was not always lucky. In his youth, the future conqueror had to go through difficult trials, and a wound in the leg made him lame forever. Hence comes the Persian nickname of the commander - Timur-i-Leng ("Iron Lamer"), turned by the Europeans into "Tamerlane".
However, in endless battles, Timur gained invaluable experience. In the 1370s, having established his power in Maverannahr, the emir no longer knew his equal in the art of winning. Sahibkiran formed a powerful and loyal army. Its core was made up of Mongols and Turks from Maverannahr, with whom, by the mid-80s of the XIV century, Tamerlane captured the surrounding regions in Central Asia and conquered Iran. Now Timur's army was huge, the soldiers were hardened in many battles and well-armed, and the discipline in their ranks was in no way inferior to the iron order in the troops of Genghis Khan. It was a terrible war machine. On the way to new conquests, she crushed the enemy troops and ruthlessly devastated rebellious countries. Thus, during the defeat of Isfahan, one of the largest cities in Iran, 28 towers were built from the heads of seventy thousand killed residents.
In battle, Timur relied not only on horse archers and men at arms, but also on professional infantry units, who defended themselves on the battlefield with huge shields. If necessary, horse tumens (detachments of several thousand people) could also dismount. Timur's army combined a solid defense with an unstoppable pressure. The troops of Maverannahr could alternate attacks with retreat during the battle, without losing formation and self-control, which was a rarity for the Middle Ages. In the most dangerous areas, selected detachments of the most experienced warriors-bakhaturs, who owned all types of weapons, operated. The valor they displayed in battle set an example for the rest of the army and plunged into discouragement the most stubborn enemies.
But Sakhibkiran was also a calculating politician. Using the turmoil in the Horde, he subdued the formerly Khorezm (in the north of modern Uzbekistan) with one hand, and with the other he helped one of the Horde princes - Tokhtamysh (? -1406) to fight for the khan throne. The Iron Lamer could not then imagine how much trouble in the future the patronized Chingizid would give him.
Cunning and ingratitude
At that turbulent time, Tokhtamysh had little chance of seizing the khan's throne in the Golden Horde, but for his patron - Timur - nothing was truly impossible. Tamerlane himself hoped to secure his northern borders with the help of Tokhtamysh and spread his influence deep into the Ulus Jochi. Therefore, he consistently supplied Tokhtamysh with money and troops to fight for power. But each time the hapless pretender to the throne was defeated by his rivals. Once, after another fiasco, Timur's people were barely able to find Tokhtamysh, who was pitifully hiding in the reeds.
But finally, luck smiled at Tokhtamysh. In 1380, with the help of Timur's people, he captured the capital of the Horde. True, Mamai ruled to the west of the Volga, but the luck of the newly-minted khan continued. At about the same time, on the Kulikovo field, the Moscow prince Dmitry with fifteen allied princes defeated Mamai. The Battle of Kulikovo was a major battle by the standards of the then Russia. The enemy armies could be 20-30 thousand people each. The resounding victory over the Tatar commander raised the authority of the Moscow prince. But this victory, as it soon became clear, unexpectedly turned against Dmitry Donskoy himself.
The Moscow prince had not paid tribute to the Horde for several years and, apparently, counted on the continuation of the turmoil in the Ulus of Jochi. But after the Kulikovo battle, Tokhtamysh, wasting no time, attacked Mamai. The latter's army went over to the side of the descendant of Genghis Khan. After that, Timur's former ward turned out to be the sovereign owner of the entire Ulus Jochi and immediately presented Moscow with a demand for tribute. In Moscow, apparently, they did not represent the seriousness of the changes that had taken place in the Horde and were in no hurry to show loyalty to the new khan. Then, in 1382, Tokhtamysh marched against Moscow with a large army.
Dmitry did not even try to defend the capital of the principality. Together with his family and boyars, he left the city. The princes, who supported Dmitry in the fight against the temnik Mamai, did not dare to raise the sword against the legitimate ruler of the Horde. After the flight of the Moscow nobility, the defense of the city was led by one of the Lithuanian princes who served Dmitry - Ostey. But Tokhtamysh went for a trick. Having started negotiations, the Tatars broke into the city, burned and devastated it ...
Not a trace remained of the position of Moscow under Mamai. Russian princes, including the son of Dmitry Donskoy - Vasily (the future Vasily I, 1371-1425), went to bow to the khan, as was the case before the turmoil in the Horde. The orderly payment of the tribute was resumed. It seemed that Moscow's leadership among the Eastern Russian principalities had come to an end, especially since Prince Mikhail of Tver (1333-1399) presented the rights to the Vladimir Grand Duchy, which belonged to Dmitry Donskoy. However, Tokhtamysh's goal was to maintain the balance of power among the vassals, so he kept Vladimir for a weakened Moscow.
Tokhtamysh could enjoy the power that he got at the cost of humiliation and numerous requests to Timur for help. And then the khan began to feel dizzy with success. The rulers of the Horde traditionally claimed power in Khorezm, Azerbaijan and northern Iran. But in the early 1380s, these regions recognized the power of Tamerlane. Tokhtamysh and the Horde nobility did not want to put up with this. An open conflict was brewing between the two states.
In the winter of 1385-86, Tokhtamysh invaded Transcaucasia and laid siege to the city of Tabriz (in the north of modern Iran). It was one of the largest shopping centers in the world and one of the former capitals of the Mongol Empire. Tabriz was then far superior to the largest cities in Europe with its wealth and number of inhabitants. The city was heavily fortified, but Tokhtamysh, as in the case of Moscow, again achieved victory with the help of treachery. With huge booty, the Tatars returned to the north. The victories gained with the help of others or by deception literally turned the head of the Horde Khan, and he decided to move the army to Maverannahr - to the center of the possessions of his former patron. This was a fatal decision.
Death of the empire
In 1387 and 1388 Tokhtamysh with a huge army invaded Central Asia twice, but achieved nothing. Among his troops were Russians, including, probably, the Moscow squads led by Prince Vasily Dmitrievich, who in 1389 will come to the throne of Moscow as Vasily I.
At first, the experienced Timur limited himself to defense, patiently gathering forces for a retaliatory strike. Finally, in 1391, he moved his army deep into the Golden Horde. According to some sources, its number reached two hundred thousand people, and was headed by temniks and thousanders who passed through fire and water. Timur was aware of what a dangerous enemy his former ward had become, and moved north with caution, fearing ambushes. Tokhtamysh decided to wear down the invincible army of Maverannahr with endless marches across the steppes. This strategy has helped the nomads repel the attacks of powerful neighbors many times. But Timur's troops also had many nomads. They made up for the lack of food by hunting. After several months of searching, crossing the rivers Tobol and Yaik (Ural), Timur's exhausted troops reached the Kondurcha River (a tributary of the Volga), where the army of Tokhtamysh was concentrated. It turned out that Tokhtamysh managed to assemble an army comparable in number to Timur's army. In addition to the Tatars, there were Circassians, Bulgars and Russians in it. Vasily Moskovsky was also summoned to help Tokhtamysh, but it is not known whether he participated in the battle.
On June 18, 1391, the grandiose battle of Kondurcha took place. Both huge armies lined up against each other. This was probably the largest battle in which the Russian princes have ever participated. Timur divided the troops into seven corps, three of which were in the center, creating a deep defense with the ability to maneuver reserves. He entrusted the command of the flanks to his sons - Miranshah and Umarsheikh. Timur himself headed the reserve, which consisted of twenty koshuns of bakhadurs (detachments of selected warriors of several hundred people each). Unusual for the Tatars of Tokhtamysh was that on the flanks of Timur, infantry detachments took up positions, protected by large stationary shields and did not allow Khromts to enter the rear.
The Horde fiercely attacked one or the other of Timur's cavalry corps, but the constrained or encircled warriors of Maverannahr dismounted and occupied a defensive defense. Meanwhile, other cavalry units came to their aid. As a result of one of the attacks, Tokhtamysh nevertheless managed to break through to the rear of Timur's troops, but Sakhibkiran himself moved towards the khan with his reserve. At a critical moment, the main banner of Tokhtamysh fell: according to one version, the soldiers of Timur captured it, according to the other, the standard-bearer of Tokhtamysh betrayed his khan. The Horde began to panic, which turned into a disorderly flight. Tokhtamysh managed to escape, but his army was defeated. However, Timur's troops also suffered heavy losses. Therefore, capturing rich booty, he returned to Maverannahr.
Apparently, Timur was sure that he got rid of Tokhtamysh. But the latter had at its disposal the Volga region and the western part of the Golden Horde. Ulus Jochi was weakened, but continued to exist. To restore his shaken authority among the vassals, Tokhtamysh decided to reward some of them for their loyalty. The Moscow prince Vasily for his service and generous gifts received the Nizhny Novgorod principality, taken from the local prince - (? -1393). In addition, the khan undertook to help Moscow rebuild after an earlier blow.
Who decided the fate of Moscow
Three years later, Tokhtamysh decided that he could challenge Timur again. In 1394, his army invaded Azerbaijan. Tamerlane's huge army came out to meet them. On April 15, 1395, another great battle took place on the Terek River. This time Timur had a significant advantage in strength. In addition, before the battle, Tokhtamysh's army left one of the Horde rulers with his people. But confidence in success nearly destroyed the center of Tamerlane's army. Carried away by the pursuit of the Horde, the attackers were crushed by a desperate counterattack of the Tatars, and Tamerlane himself with his retinue was surrounded by enemies. His bakhaturs took up defense, hiding behind Tatar carts. But soon fresh forces began to come to the rescue. In the end, the Horde were completely defeated. Having missed the chance to destroy the Iron Lame, Tokhtamysh fled again. This time, Tamerlane decided to exclude the potential for the revival of the Jochi Ulus. His armies moved in different directions, exterminating the Horde and burning the main cities, including Saray Berke. It was a fatal blow for the Golden Horde, from which it was never able to recover. The last great ulus of the Mongol Empire was a thing of the past.
After Timur left, Tokhtamysh was opposed by two Horde princes-Chingizids - Emir Edigei (1352-1419) and Timur Kutlug, who in 1395 became the new khan (ruled 1395-1399). Tokhtamysh, who fled to Lithuania, enlisted the support of Prince Vitovt (1352-1419), most of whose army consisted of Russian squads under the command of the princes of the Western Russian lands. This army was larger than that of Dmitry Donskoy in the Kulikovo field, and Litvin hatched ambitious plans of conquest. But the allies were defeated in 1399 by Edigey and Timur Kutlug in the battle on the Vorksla River. Lithuania was temporarily weakened, but meanwhile the struggle for power in the Horde continued.
In such circumstances, only Moscow remained the winner (as already mentioned, at the end of his reign, Tokhtamysh had a hand in its restoration). Meanwhile, the Golden Horde soon fell apart into separate khanates, which created the conditions for the liberation of the Moscow principality from the long-term Tatar yoke. True, because of internal civil strife, Moscow became free only under Ivan III (1440-1505), in 1480. But the conditions for this arose precisely after the pogrom that was perpetrated in the Ulus by Jochi Tamerlane. So we can say that the fate of not only the Golden Horde, but also the future capital of Russia was decided on the banks of the Kondurcha and Terek.
As for Timur, his armada continued to shake with their invasions the space from India to the Aegean Sea and Egypt until the death of the commander in 1405. Least of all, Sakhibkiran was interested in the fate of the distant northern principality, which he helped in the future to free itself from the Horde power.
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The full name of the great conqueror of antiquity, which will be discussed in our article, is Timur ibn Taragay Barlas, but in literature he is often referred to as Tamerlane, or the Iron Chromets. It should be clarified that he was nicknamed Zhelezny not only for his personal qualities, but also because this is how his name Timur is translated from the Turkic language. Lameness was the result of a wound received in one of the battles. There is reason to believe that this mysterious commander of the past was involved in the great blood that was shed in the 20th century.
Who is Tamerlane and where is he from?
First, a few words about the childhood of the future great khan. It is known that Timur-Tamerlane was born on April 9, 1336 on the territory of the present Uzbek city of Shakhrisabz, which was at that time a small village called Khoja-Ilgar. His father, a local landowner from the Barlas tribe, Muhammad Taragay, professed Islam, and raised his son in this faith.
Following the customs of those times, from early childhood he taught the boy the basics of the art of war - horseback riding, archery and javelin throwing. As a result, barely reaching maturity, he was already an experienced warrior. It was then that the future conqueror Tamerlane received invaluable knowledge.
The biography of this man, or rather, that part of it that has become the property of history, begins with the fact that in his youth he won the favor of Khan Tuglik, the ruler of the Chagatai ulus, one of the Mongol states, on whose territory the future commander was born.
Having appreciated the fighting qualities, as well as the extraordinary mind of Timur, he brought him closer to the court, making his son a tutor. However, the prince's entourage, fearing his rise, began to build intrigues against him, and as a result, fearing for his life, the newly-minted educator was forced to flee.
At the head of a squad of mercenaries
The years of Tamerlane's life coincided with the historical period when it was a continuous theater of military operations. Fragmented into many states, it was constantly torn apart by civil strife among local khans, who were constantly trying to seize neighboring lands. The situation was aggravated by countless robber gangs - jette, who did not recognize any power and lived exclusively by robberies.
In this situation, the failed teacher Timur-Tamerlane found his true calling. Having united several dozen ghoulams - professional hired warriors - he created a detachment, superior in its fighting qualities and cruelty to all the other surrounding gangs.
First conquests
Together with his thugs, the newly-minted commander made daring raids on cities and villages. It is known that in 1362 he stormed several fortresses that belonged to the Sarbadars - members of the popular movement against Mongol rule. Capturing them, he ordered to wall the surviving defenders into walls. This was an act of intimidation of all future opponents, and such cruelty became one of the main features of his character. Very soon the whole East learned about who Tamerlane was.
It was then that in one of the fights he lost two fingers of his right hand and was seriously wounded in the leg. Its consequences survived until the end of his life and served as the basis for the nickname - Timur the Lame. However, it did not prevent him from becoming a figure who played a significant role in the history of not only Central, Western and South Asia, but also the Caucasus and Russia in the last quarter of the XIV century.
Leadership talent and extraordinary audacity helped Tamerlane to conquer the entire territory of Fergana, subjugating Samarkand, and making the city of Ket the capital of the newly formed state. Further, his army rushed to the territory belonging to present-day Afghanistan, and, having ruined it, seized the ancient capital Balkh by storm, the emir of which - Huseyn - was immediately hanged. Most of the courtiers shared his fate.
Cruelty as a deterrent
The next direction of attack by his cavalry was the cities of Isfahan and Fars located to the south of Balkh, where the last representatives of the Persian dynasty of Muzaffarids ruled. Isfahan was the first on his way. Capturing it, and giving it to his mercenaries to plunder, Timur the Lame ordered to lay down the heads of those killed in a pyramid, the height of which exceeded the height of a person. This was a continuation of his constant intimidation tactics.
It is characteristic that the entire subsequent history of Tamerlane, the conqueror and commander, was marked by manifestations of extreme cruelty. In part, it can be explained by the fact that he himself became a hostage to his own policy. Leading a highly professional army, Lame had to regularly pay his mercenaries, otherwise their scimitars would turn against him. This forced them to achieve new victories and conquests by any available means.
The beginning of the fight against the Golden Horde
In the early 80s, the next stage of Tamerlane's ascent was the conquest of the Golden Horde, or, in other words, the Dzhuchiev ulus. From time immemorial, it was dominated by the Euro-Asian steppe culture with its own religion of polytheism, which had nothing to do with Islam, professed by most of its soldiers. Therefore, the hostilities that began in 1383 became a clash not only of opposing armies, but also of two different cultures.
Ordynsky, the same one who made a campaign against Moscow in 1382, wishing to get ahead of his enemy and strike first, undertook a campaign against Kharezm. Having achieved a temporary success, he also captured a significant territory of present-day Azerbaijan, but soon his troops were forced to retreat, suffering significant losses.
In 1385, taking advantage of the fact that Timur and his hordes were in Persia, he tried again, but this time he failed. Upon learning of the invasion of the Horde, the formidable commander urgently returned his troops to Central Asia and utterly defeated the enemy, forcing Tokhtamysh himself to flee to Western Siberia.
Continuation of the fight against the Tatars
However, the conquest of the Golden Horde was not over yet. Its final defeat was preceded by five years filled with incessant military campaigns and bloodshed. It is known that in 1389 the Horde Khan even managed to insist that he be supported by Russian squads in the war with Muslims.
This was facilitated by the death of the Grand Duke of Moscow Dmitry Donskoy, after which his son and heir Vasily had to go to the Horde for a label to reign. Tokhtamysh confirmed his rights, but subject to the participation of Russian troops in repelling the Muslim attack.
Defeat of the Golden Horde
Prince Vasily agreed, but it was only formal. After the defeat perpetrated by Tokhtamysh in Moscow, none of the Russians wanted to shed blood for him. As a result, in the very first battle on the Kondurcha River (a tributary of the Volga), they abandoned the Tatars and, having crossed to the opposite bank, left.
The end of the conquest of the Golden Horde was the battle on the Terek River, in which the troops of Tokhtamysh and Timur met on April 15, 1395. Iron Chromets managed to inflict a crushing defeat on his enemy and thereby put an end to the Tatar raids on the territories under his control.
The threat to the Russian lands and the campaign to India
The next blow was preparing for them in the very heart of Russia. The purpose of the planned campaign was Moscow and Ryazan, who until then did not know who Tamerlane was, and paid tribute to the Golden Horde. But, fortunately, these plans were not destined to come true. The uprising of the Circassians and Ossetians prevented, which broke out in the rear of Timur's troops and forced the conqueror to turn back. The only victim then was the city of Yelets, which was on his way.
Over the next two years, his army made a victorious campaign in India. Having captured Delhi, Timur's warriors plundered and burned the city, and killed 100 thousand defenders who were captured, fearing a possible rebellion on their part. Having reached the banks of the Ganges and seizing several fortified fortresses along the way, the army of many thousands returned to Samarkand with rich booty and a large number of slaves.
New conquests and new blood
Following India, it was the turn of the Ottoman Sultanate to submit to the sword of Tamerlane. In 1402, he defeated the hitherto invincible janissaries of Sultan Bayezid, and took him prisoner. As a result, the entire territory of Asia Minor was under his rule.
Could not resist the troops of Tamerlane and the Ionite knights, who for many years held the fortress of the ancient city of Smyrna in their hands. Having repelled the attacks of the Turks more than once, they surrendered to the mercy of the lame conqueror. When Venetian and Genoese ships with reinforcements arrived to their aid, the victors threw them from the fortress catapults with the severed heads of the defenders.
A plan that Tamerlane could not carry out
The biography of this outstanding commander and evil genius of his era ends with the last ambitious project, which was his campaign against China, which began in 1404. The goal was to seize the Great Silk Road, which made it possible to receive tax from passing merchants and to replenish their already overflowing treasury due to this. But the implementation of the plan was prevented by sudden death, which cut short the life of the commander in February 1405.
The great emir of the Timurid empire - under this title he entered the history of his people - was buried in the Gur Emir mausoleum in Samarkand. A legend is associated with his burial, passed down from generation to generation. It says that if Tamerlane's sarcophagus is opened, and his ashes are disturbed, then a terrible and bloody war will be the punishment for this.
In June 1941, an expedition of the USSR Academy of Sciences was sent to Samarkand to exhume the remains of the commander and study them. The grave was opened on the night of June 21, and the next day, as you know, the Great Patriotic War began.
Another fact is also interesting. In October 1942, a participant in those events, cameraman Malik Kayumov, meeting with Marshal Zhukov, told him about the curse that had been fulfilled and offered to return Tamerlane's ashes to their original place. This was done on November 20, 1942, and on the same day a radical change followed during the Battle of Stalingrad.
Skeptics are inclined to argue that in this case there was only a number of accidents, because the plan of attack on the USSR was developed long before the opening of the tomb by people who, although they knew who Tamerlane was, but, of course, did not take into account the spell weighing on his grave. Without entering into polemics, we will only say that everyone has the right to have their own point of view on this matter.
Conqueror's family
The wives and children of Timur are of particular interest to researchers. Like all Eastern rulers, this great conqueror of the past had a huge family. Only official wives (not counting concubines) he had 18 people, the favorite of whom is considered to be Sarai-mulk khanum. Despite the fact that a lady with such a poetic name was barren, the master trusted her with the upbringing of many of his sons and grandchildren. She also went down in history as the patroness of art and science.
It is quite understandable that with such a number of wives and concubines, there was no shortage of children either. However, only four of his sons took the places befitting such a high lineage and became rulers in the empire created by their father. In their person, the story of Tamerlane found its continuation.
Yuri LOSCHITS
The invasion of Tamerlane to Russia at the end of the XIV century is one of the least studied events national history... First of all, this concerns the historical science of our century. She managed to keep the Tamerlane plot locked up without releasing it - even in a synopsis - in any of the popular history textbooks. This total ignorance of one of the most terrible threats to the existence of the ancient Russian state is explained, however, surprisingly simply ...
Tamerlane (Timur)
Tamerlane did not fit into the atheistic concept of the historical process in any way. If we remove from the plot of his invasion the wonderworking associated with the transfer of the most revered icon of the Mother of God in Russia from Vladimir to Moscow, then no Soviet historian could intelligibly explain what exactly prompted the Central Asian commander to abandon his almost free victory, suddenly and forever take away his darkness from the southern Russian lands.
After all, it is known that Moscow at that hour was not at all ready for a worthy military resistance. From a strategic point of view, it looked even more defenseless than during the attack of Khan Tokhtamysh thirteen years ago. Any purely materialistic explanation of the trick of Tamerlane, who suddenly deigned to spare the bloodless Russia, would look pitiful. The principle of mercy was unknown to the most cruel general known to the world.
It would be necessary to look for other, more meager interpretations of his whim. Didn't he suffer from delirium tremens long before his death? Didn't he receive a huge ransom from the Russians? Did you experience a shortage of provisions and forage? What other twist of being could define the twist of his consciousness? Or was Tamerlane the first consistent absurdist in the history of war? All fortune-telling and fantasies of this kind have no basis in historical sources associated with the suddenly interrupted invasion of Russia, interrupted by the will of the initiator of the most terrible pogrom.
I will give just one example of the helplessness of the analysis shown in the interpretation of Tamerlane's act. This example is especially indicative, since it refers to the last decade of the existence of Soviet historical science. In the comments to "The Tale of Temir Aksak" ("Monuments of literature Ancient Rus XIV - mid-15th century ". Moscow, 1981) we read:" In August 1395, Timur unexpectedly went to Yelets, plundered him and, having stood by the Don for about two weeks, for unclear reasons turned back, heading for the Crimea. Apparently, quite soberly assessing the situation, Timur did not want to get involved with the rebellious "ulus". He had just a second time and already finally defeated his rival, Tokhtamysh, and continued his punitive expeditions across the Tatar lands, subordinating them to his power. The access to Russia was a reconnaissance similar to the one carried out by Genghis Khan's commander Sabudai in 1223, giving battle to the Russian and Polovtsian princes on Kalka. Nevertheless, Timur's decision in Russia was perceived as God's intercession and as a miracle. "
The commentator, obviously, does not bother with documentary evidence of what happened, hoping, it seems, that his interpretation of the event will be taken on trust. Meanwhile, in such an arbitrary and illogical construction, both sides look ridiculous - both Tamerlane, who on an unexpected whim came out to Yelets and "for unclear reasons" turned back, and Russia, which hastened to comprehend this supposedly accidental, completely optional military demarche of Tamerlane, "as God's intercession and miracle". If the reasons for the conqueror's departure to Crimea are unclear, then the reasoning about the allegedly sober assessment of the situation on the part of Timur and about his fear of stirring up "rebellious" uluses, by which the commentator means the Russian principalities, is completely groundless.
But could the invincible Eastern Caesar, not to him, but to his just utterly defeated enemy Tokhtamysh, could be chickened out by the subordinate ulus? And could his access to Russia be only intelligence? After all, he had just defeated Tokhtamysh not at the head of a small reconnaissance detachment, otherwise he would not have rushed right there in a small number to finish off the Golden Horde in the Crimea. No matter how clever the commentator is, he still fails to present Timur's arrival in Russia in the form of such a random, unexpected, easy and unnecessary reconnaissance walk. And the Russian side - in the form of fanatical simpletons, who, by chance appearance and inexplicable disappearance of curious Asians, inflated to the extent of "God's intercession and miracle".
Those relatively few, but reliable historical facts of the Tamerlane invasion and the Russian rebuff to it, which are available to a conscientious researcher, confirm both the extreme threat and the reality of the blessed miraculous help.
Medieval biographers and memoirists usually note that Timur, being illiterate, had a remarkably strong and tenacious memory, constantly kept personal readers with him, and knew Turkish and Persian well (Zafar-Name. "Book of Victories"). Judging by the scale of his campaigns of conquest, Eurasian geography was also part of the circle of well-mastered disciplines. He knew no less about Russia than about the Caucasus and India, about China and the Middle East.
An ancient Russian chronicler, telling about the invasion of Mamai in 1380, gives a curious detail: Mamai "began to test from old stories how Tsar Baty captured the Russian land and owned all the princes, as he wanted", because he, Mamai, "although our second king of Batu is to be" ... In accordance with this lust and study of "old stories" Mamai went to Russia along the very same corridor between the tributaries of the Volga and Don, along which Genghis Khan's grandson Baty had once invaded the Ryazan principality.
But in the "Tale of Temir Aksak" this new conqueror is spoken about in almost the same terms as about Mama in the stories of the Kulikovo cycle: sins allowed to God, trail the Caesar Baty Rus land, and the proud and fierce Temir Aksak thinks the same ... ".
It is no coincidence that this comparison between Tamerlane and Baty was emphasized by the author of the story almost immediately, when describing his half-month standing at Yelets: "Temir Aksak has already stood in one place for 15 days, thinking, cursed, wanting to go to the entire Russian Earth, like the second Baty, to ruin the peasantry" ...
The historical analogy with the grandson of Genghis Khan is invariably preserved in many copies and more lengthy editions of the story. "Yako the second Batu" Timur is also certified in "The Tale of the Meeting of the Miraculous Image of Our Most Pure Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary ..." (in the appendix to Volume II of the Nikon Chronicle).
Just like Mamai, Timur went to Russia not at all for an intelligence purpose, but with the task of a new total conquest of the state, which was clearly leaving the control of the decrepit Golden Horde. The seriousness of his intentions is evidenced by the nature of the military preparations undertaken by the Russian side. The son of the holy noble prince Dmitry Ivanovich Donskoy, the current autocrat of Russia, Vasily Dmitrievich, gathers an army and militia in Moscow, descends with an army to Kolomna and builds a defense along the northern bank of the Oka.
Back in the days of Dmitry Donskoy, Muscovy Russia had established reliable steppe reconnaissance in the southern outskirts in case of unexpected raids. Vasily Dmitrievich, of course, would not have started these extraordinary and exhausting military movements for the treasury, in fact, general mobilization, if he received news from his distant patrols about the small reconnaissance raid of Tamerlane. In addition, Vasily Dmitrievich knew the uninvited guest firsthand. At one time, he had to watch the monstrous growth of the phantasmagoric Tamerlane Empire from close range.
In 1371, that is, in the year of Basil's birth, Tamerlane already owned lands from Manchuria to the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea. During his three-year forced stay at the headquarters of Khan Tokhtamysh as a hostage, Dmitry Donskoy's eldest son witnessed the ripening of discord between Timur and the owner of the Golden Horde. In 1386 - the year of the flight of Vasily Dmitrievich from the headquarters of Tokhtamysh - Timur penetrates the Caucasus and captures Tiflis. In 1389, when Dmitry Donskoy was dying in Moscow, Tamerlane undertook the first of three campaigns against the Golden Horde. On the eve of the invasion of the Russian borders, in 1395, the third campaign took place: Timur defeated Tokhtamysh's army on the Terek, subjected the Golden Horde capital, Saray-Berk, to a terrible plunder, after which this city actually ceased to exist as an imperial metropolis.
No matter how strict our ancient chroniclers were to Temir Aksak, calling him "proud", "fierce", "accursed", we have no right to forget that many inveterate enemies of Ancient Russia awarded him with the same or even stronger epithets during his lifetime and after death and all the Slavs. In the case of this most cruel tyrant, Divine Providence ordered that Timur became a real scourge, first of all, for the states and peoples who oppressed Russia and, more broadly, the Orthodox Slavs. In the 11th volume of the Nikon Chronicle, immediately after the announcement of Timur's victory over Tokhtamysh, we read: “... and from this, the accursed fury was kindled to go to Russia; and the Tsar of Tursk Baozit, in an iron cage, with him. And he came near the border of Ryazan land. .. ".
In this message (it goes through many lists of "The Tale of Temir Aksak") we are dealing with an interesting anachronism, with a gross chronological error, which, it seems to us, was nevertheless made on purpose. The fact is that in 1395 Tamerlane could not come to Russia in any way, having a cage with the Turkish Sultan Bayazid in the train, since the battle of Ankara, as a result of which Bayazid the Lightning-fast was captured by Timur, took place in 1402, that is, seven years later after Timur unexpectedly canceled his invasion of Russia.
It should be recalled here that the captive sultan is the same Bayezid, who got the laurels of the victor in the Kosovo field in 1389, when, as a result of a bloody battle, Sultan Murat, Bayazid's father, died on the Turkish side, and the great martyr Prince Lazar on the Serbian side. Since that time, Bayezid has been very successful in the European theater of military operations: in 1396 he won the famous battle of Nikopol, defeating the crusader army. For many years Bayazid had been preparing to take the capital of Byzantium, Constantinople. At the same time, the Bulgarian lands were subjected to methodical blows. In 1393, the Turks took after a three-month siege of Tarnovo, putting an end to the Tarnovo, and soon the Vidin Bulgarian kingdoms.
The appearance of Timur's hordes in Asia Minor, albeit not for a very long time, nevertheless stopped the invasion of the Turks into the Orthodox and Slavic Balkans. It is significant: the Serbian despot Stefan Lazarevich, the son of Prince Lazar, who was killed in the Kosovo field, was forced to participate in the Ankara battle on the side of Bayazid. But soon after the Battle of Ankara, Stefan - he managed to leave and save part of his army - defeats the Turks in the same Kosovo field, as if doing historical retribution for the first Kosovo, for the death of his parent, for the humiliation of the Serbian land.
These events (first of all, the defeat of the Turks near Ankara) were also perceived by the Russian author of "The Tale of Temir Aksak" as retribution, God's punishment sent to the Ottoman conquerors. That is why the story, written after Timur's invasion of Asia Minor, testifies to the quite deliberate "mistake" of the author, who put Bayazid in an iron cage back in 1395, so that Tamerlane would bring her to the Russian borders as if by sight: look, they say , to the murderer of the Orthodox despot Lazarus.
March of that very year 1402 (when the battle of Timur with Bayazid took place) marked a short article by a Russian chronicler, giving a remarkable in its scale generalization of a military and geopolitical nature: "... a sign appears in the west, in the evening dawn, the star is great in an extremely spear fashion .. behold, show a sign, before the pagans rise up to fight each other: Turks, Lyakhs, Ugrians, Germans, Lithuania, Czechs, Horde, Greeks, Rus, and other many lands and countries are crumpled and pitted against each other; the seas have also begun appear ". (PSRL, vol. 12, p. 187).
There is no exaggeration in this image of widespread discord between peoples: it was an era of truly tectonic shifts on the ethnic map of the Eurasian continent. The era of great battles and invasions (Kulikovo, Kosovo field, the destruction of Moscow by Tokhtamysh, the Battle of Nikopol, the Battle of Vorskla, Ankara, Grunwald, the Battle of Maritsa, the invasion of Edigey, the Hussite wars ...) covered the living space of most Slavic states and peoples. She deeply shocked the Orthodox world. The result of this era was the collapse of Byzantium, the birth of a new center of Orthodoxy in Moscow Russia.
By the time the campaign began on Russia, Tamerlane was already a famous commander who conquered many countries. He was deservedly called "invincible".
Even in those troubled times, he was distinguished by ruthlessness and cruelty. Russia was weakened first by the invasion of Mamai, then by the campaign of Tokhtamysh. Tamerlane's army could almost effortlessly conquer the Russian state, but this did not happen.
Historians are unanimous in describing why Tamerlane went to Russia. The commander pursued his main enemy at that time, the Golden Horde Khan Tokhtamysh. The conflict between them flared up several years before Tamerlane's campaign. Initially, Tokhtamysh enjoyed the support of Tamerlane - he helped him in the fight against Mamai and intrigues within the Horde, but, having gained power, Tokhtamysh began to think about getting rid of his patron.
In 1391 he gathered the Horde army and attacked Tamerlane. He defeated the former protege completely - even ordinary soldiers of Tamerlane received rich booty. Three years later, Tokhtamysh tried to take revenge. And again to no avail. The enraged Tamerlane decided to destroy the Horde completely: he gathered an army and began to destroy the armies of Tokhtamysh's commanders. Having destroyed the Horde, Tamerlane moved to Russia.
He reached Yelets and easily destroyed a small town. Historian Sergey Soloviev wrote: “Tamerlane, capturing the ruler of Yeletsky with all his boyars, moved to the upper reaches of the Don and walked along the banks of this river, devastating the villages. The famous Persian historian of this time Sherefeddinloving to praise the virtues of his hero, he admits that Tamerlane, like Batu, strewed the fields in Russia with corpses, killing not soldiers, but only unarmed people. " The commander moved to Moscow, but without even starting an assault, he deployed the army and left the borders of Russia. There are still versions as to why this happened.
Intercession of the Virgin
In Orthodoxy, Tamerlane's retreat is attributed to one of the miracles manifested by the icon of the Vladimir Mother of God. Having learned about the approach of Tamerlane, Prince Vasily went out with an army near Kolomna. Metropolitan Cyprian blessed the young prince for the battle and equipped an embassy in Vladimir. The icon was carried to Moscow in a procession with the cross. The annals say that on the day the icon arrived in Moscow (August 26, 1395), Tamerlane had a dream: the Mother of God ordered him to leave the Russian borders. Later, Cyprian founded the Sretensky Monastery at the meeting place of the icon.
Lack of rich booty
Sergey Soloviev adhered to this version. He wrote that the extraction from Yelets and several small towns of the Ryazan principality could not satisfy the commanders of Tamerlane, spoiled by rich trophies. Arab sources, on the contrary, indicated that on the way to the upper reaches of the Don, Tamerlane received furs, thin linen, ingots of silver and gold. The "chronicler" of Tamerlane's victories, Sharafaddin Yazdi, also describes a large booty, but does not mention a single episode of the battle. Perhaps the gifts to the commander were brought by the princes who sought to protect their lands from the raid.
Strategic interests
Autumn was approaching, and the weather conditions were not favorable for a long hike. Muscovites were also preparing for battle, the army of the Lithuanian prince Vitovt went to their aid.
The Russians, as tributaries of the Horde, had to side with Tokhtamysh and fight for him, but the invasion of the Khan and the defeat of Moscow in 1382 did not contribute to this. Prince Vasily was ready to give battle to Tamerlane, but he was not ready to support his enemy. Only having recently become a prince in 1389, Vasily Tokhtamysh did not come to the rescue. Perhaps the commander was aware of this as well. Tamerlane, after all his victorious campaigns, for example, to Persia and Iran, did not really need Russia.
Much more important to him was the final defeat of the Horde. The commander went to Yelets with one goal - to catch up with one of the Horde commanders, Bek-Yaryk-Oglan. He was able to get away from the army of Tamerlane at the Dnieper and fled to the east. In the west there were Lithuanian possessions, where the Horde commander was also not favored. He hid in Yelets. After the fall of the city, he managed to escape further into the depths of Russia.
According to the chronicles, Tamerlane near Yelets spent two weeks thinking about his future plans. Some historians write that the army did not like such a delay, it began to murmur. The commander set off back through the Crimean peninsula and into the Transcaucasus, defeating the important Horde cities. In these territories, he was able to collect a good tribute in order to triumphantly return to Samarkand.
