The power of Ivan Kalita being once raised by the Tatars' aid, and by the re-establishment of the direct line of succession, and thoroughly developed by his son and grandson, Simeon the Proud and Dmitri Donskoi, it followed, as a natural consequence, that he who was most able to reward and to punish drew around him, and retained, the whole of the nobles. These constituted the sole strength of the appanaged princes; their defection, therefore, completed the subjugation of the princes. Dmitri Donskoi was, therefore, in reality sovereign, as is proved by his treaties with the princes who held appanages, all of whom he reduced to be his vassals. And, accordingly, notwithstanding the appanages which he gave to his sons, and the dissensions which arose out of that error — an error as yet, perhaps, unavoidable — the attachment of the nobles, for which we have just assigned a reason, always replaced the legitimate heir on the throne.
Dmitri Donskoi
Already, so early as about 1366, the Russian princes could no longer venture to contend against their lord paramount by any other means than by denunciations-to the horde; but to what khan could they be addressed? Discord had created severaclass="underline" what result was to be hoped from them? Divided among themselves, the Tatar armies had ceased to be an available force. The journeys to the Golden Horde, which had originally contributed to keep the Russian princes in awe, now served to afford them an insight into the weakness of their enemies. The grand princes returned from the horde with the confidence that they might usurp with impunity; and their competitorswith envoys and letters, which even they themselves well knew would be of no avail. It was, then, obvious in Russia, that the only protecting power was at Moscow: to have recourse to its support was a matter of necessity. The petty princes could obtain it only by the sacrifice of their independence; and thus all of them became vassals to the grand prince Dmitri.
Never did a great man arise more opportunely than this Dmitri. It was a propitious circumstance, that the dissensions of the Tatars gave them full occupation during the eighteen years subsequent to the first three of his reign:1 this, in the first place, allowed him time to extinguish the devastating fury of Olgerd the Lithuanian, son of Gedimin, father of Iagello, and conqueror of all Lithuania, Volhinia, Smolensk, Kiev, and even of Taurida; secondly, to unite several principalities with his throne; and lastly, to compel the other princes, and even the prince of Tver, to acknowledge his paramount authority.
The contest with the latter was terrible: four times did Dmitri overcome Michael, and four times did the prince of Tver, aided by his son-in-law, the great Olgerd, prince of Lithuania, rise again victorious. In this obstinate conflict, Moscow itself was twice besieged, and must have fallen, had it not been for its stone walls, the recent work of the first regency of the Muscovite boyars. But, at length, Olgerd died; and Dmitri, who, but three years before, could appear only on his knees at the horde, now dared to refuse the khan his tribute, and to put to death the insolent ambassador who had been sent to claim it.
We have seen that, fifty years earlier, a similar instance of temerity caused the branch of Tver to fall beneath that of Moscow; but times were changed. The triple alliance of the primate, the boyars, and the grand prince, had now restored to the Russians a confidence in their own strength: they had acquired boldness from a conviction of the power of their grand prince, and from the dissensions of the Tatars. Some bands of the latter, wandering in Muscovy in search of plunder, were defeated; at last the Tatars have fled before the Russians! they are become their slaves, the delusion of their invincibility is no more!
The burst of fury which the khan exhibited on learning the murder of his representative, accordingly served as a signal for the confederation of all the Russian princes against the prince of Tver. He was compelled to submit to the grand prince, and to join with him against the horde.
The Battle of the Don or Kulikovo (1380 A.D.J
Russia now began to feel that there were three things which were indispensably necessary to her; the establishment of the direct succession, the concentration of the supreme power, and the union of all parties against the Tatars. The movement in this direction was takЈn very opportunely; for it happened simultaneously that the Mongolian chief, Mamai, was also disembarrassed of his civil wars (1380), and he hastened with all his forces into Russia to re-establish his slighted authority; but he found the grand prince Dmitri confronting him on the Don, at the head of the combined Russian princes and an army of two hundred thousand2 men. Dmitri put it to the choice of his troops whether they would go to encounter the foe, who were encamped at no great distance on the opposite shore of the river, or remain on this side and wait the attack? With one voice they declared for going
1From 1362 to 1380.
[a 150,000 in Soloviov and Rambaud.]
over to the assault. The grand prince immediately transported his battalions across the river, and then turned the vessels adrift, in order to cut off all hopes of escaping by retreat, and inspire his men with a more desperate valour against an enemy who was three times stronger in numbers. The fight began. The Russians defended themselves valiantly against the furious attacks of the Tatars; the hosts of combatants pressed in such numbers to the field of battle, that multitudes of them were trampled under foot by the tumult of men and horses. The Tatars, continually relieved by fresh bodies of soldiers as any part was fatigued by the conflict, seemed at length to have victory on their side. Nothing but the impossibility of getting over the river, and the firm persuasion that death would directly transport them from the hands of the infidel enemy into the mansions of bliss, restrained the Russians from a general flight. But all at once, at the very moment when everything seemed to be lost, a detachment of the grand prince's army, which he had stationed as a reserve, and which till now had remained inactive and unobserved, came up in full force, fell upon the rear of the Tatars, and threw them into such amazement and terror that they fled, and left the Russians masters of the field. This momentous victory, however, cost them dear; thousands lay dead upon the ground, and the whole army was occupied eight days in burying the bodies of the dead Russians: those of the Tatars were left uninterred upon the ground. It was in harmony of this achievement that Dmitri received his honourable surname of Donskoi. я
Significance of Battle of Kulikovo
The chronicles say that such a battle as that of Kulikovo had never before been known in Russia; even Europe had not seen the like of it for a long time. Such bloody conflicts had taken place in the western half of Europe at the beginning of the so-called Middle Ages, at the time of the great migration of nations, in those terrible collisions between European and Asiatic armies; such was the battle of Chalons-sur-Marne, when the Roman general saved western Europe from the Huns; such too was the battle of Tours, where the Frankish leader saved western Europe from the Arabs (Saracens). Western Europe was saved from the Asiatics, but her eastern half remained long open to their attacks. Here, about the middle of the ninth century, was formed an empire which should have served Europe as a bulwark against Asia; in the thirteenth century this bulwark was seemingly destroyed, but the foundations of the European empire were saved in the distant northwest; thanks to the preservation of these foundations, in a hundred and fifty years the empire succeeded in becoming unified, consolidated — and the victory of Kulikovo served as a proof of its strength. It was an omen of the triumph of Europe over Asia, and has exactly the same signification in the history of eastern Europe as the victories of CMlons and Tours have in that of western Europe. It also bears a like character with them — that of a terrible, bloody slaughter, a desperate struggle between Europe and Asia, which was to decide the great question in the history of humanity: which of these two parts of the world was to triumph over the other.