Dmitri led his men far into the steppes to meet the Tartars, and at last came up with them on the banks of the Don, at the field of Kulikovo.* He placed part of his men in ambush in a dense wood, and attacked Mamai with the remainder of his force. For hours the victory wavered, but then Dmitri’s reserves broke from their hiding-place,* the Tartars were routed,* and their camp and stores fell into the hands of the Russians. The Lithuanians, hearing of the defeat of the Tartars, turned back and returned to their own country.
Dmitri assumed the title of Donskoi* and returned to Moscow in triumph, but two years later [1382] the Tartars under Tokhtamysh* again entered Russia and marched on Moscow. The Kremlin was so strong that Tokhtamysh offered to make terms if the Moscovites would pay a ransom and allow him to visit the Kremlin. The Moscovites unsuspectingly opened their gates and received the Khan unarmed, and with costly gifts, whereupon the Tartars set upon them, and sacked and burnt the Kremlin. This act of treachery* so weakened Dmitri’s power that he lost all the fruits of his victory at Kulikovo.*
abridged
* The battle took place on September 8th, 1380. Visit the official battlefield website (in English) for more. “Great was the joy in Russia,” wrote a chronicler, “but great was also the mourning for those slain by the forces of Mamai on the Don.” Many children were robbed of their fathers in that terrible battle; indeed, the Saturday before the feast of Dmitri’s namesake, St Demetrius of Thessalonica (October 26th [OS] or November 8th [NS]), is kept to this day as a day of memorial for all departed parents.
* The detachment was under the command of Prince Dmitri Mikhailovich Bobrok (‘Little Beaver’), brother-in-law of Grand Duke Dmitri Ivanovitch of Moscow. His men chafed at the delay. “Who benefits by our standing here idle?” blurted out Prince Vladimir (1353–1410), Dmitri Ivanovitch’s cousin. The murmurs became louder and more numerous. “Wait, you silly Russian children” growled Bobrok, a Lithuanian. Then when defeat seemed assured: “Ye sons of Russia” Bobrok cried, “brothers and friends, the hour has come — now is our time to strike, and may the Holy Spirit help and guide us!”
* “It is reported” says Sonia Howe “that when the great Tatar leader saw this rout of his army, he joined in the flight, crying, ‘Great is the God of the Christians!’.”
* Donskoi means ‘of the River Don’. After the Battle of the Neva in 1240, Alexander of Novgorod took the soubriquet ‘Nevski’. See The Trials of Alexander Nevsky
* Tokhtamysh (?1342–1406), a Khan (king) of the Blue Horde, who had just effected a short-lived union with the White Horde and was in a position of unusual strength.
* Grand Duke Dmitri Ivanovitch ‘Donskoi’ was not there. It was his father-in-law Dmitri Konstantinovich (1324-1383), Prince of Suzdal and Nizhni Novgorod, who persuaded the citizens to surrender the city; he had been installed as Grand Duke of Vladimir in 1360 by the Horde, only for the Horde to give his crown to the teenage Dmitri Ivanovitch three years later. As a result of the siege, Grand Duke Dmitri ‘Donskoi’ was obliged to acknowledge Tokhtamysh as his ruler, and to surrender his own son Vasily as a hostage. St Dmitri died seven years later, five months short of his thirty-ninth birthday.
* This is not quite true; the defeat at Kulikovo was a blow and a humiliation which shattered the Horde’s legend of invincibility and from which, in the long term, they did not recover.