Russian-Polish War Minin and Pozharsky. Publishing house native ladoga. year in the history of Russia

The heroic feat of the inhabitants of the Nizhny Novgorod province, who participated in the militia of Minin and Pozharsky, is an epoch-making event in Russian history.

No wonder the date of the celebration of National Unity Day falls precisely on November, when the great battle took place, and the fighters expelled the Polish invaders from the capital of Russia.

Consider a summary of the main events of 1612.

1612 in the history of Russia

At the beginning of the XVII century. Russia was captured by the most severe crisis in the sphere of politics and economy, the origins of which can be traced back to the times of Russia.

The country was devastated by the ruling boyars and false tsars for 15 years. The situation was not improved by the military intervention of Sweden and the Commonwealth.

But 1612 also became the year of the end of the Time of Troubles and the beginning of the final deliverance from the Polish yoke, thanks to a powerful patriotic wave that rose in Novgorod and ended in victory in Moscow.

Creation of the Nizhny Novgorod militia

After the collapse of the first militia, artisans and merchants of Nizhny Novgorod came up with a proposal to gather people living in the county to fight the Polish invaders.

The creation of the Nizhny Novgorod militia in September 1612 was a turning point in the fight against foreign invaders. The collection of volunteers lasted almost a year.

The command staff was recruited from the nobility, and ordinary militias were formed from peasants and residents of the province. Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky were appointed leaders of the people's militia.

Who were Minin and Pozharsky

Minin Kuzma Minich was born into the family of a city merchant in Novgorod. Before the events of 1612, Minin was the owner of a butcher's shop. But in 1608 he joined the local militia, participated in the expulsion of supporters of False Dmitry II. Later he was elected to the position of Zemstvo headman.

After the failure of the first militia, he was the first to call on the inhabitants of Novgorod to resist the enemy, and independently led the movement to create a people's army.

Pozharsky Dmitry Mikhailovich belonged to the princely class. In 1602 he was a steward at the court of Boris Godunov, and in 1608 he was sent to defend Kolomna as a governor. At the end of 1610, together with the Lyapunov brothers, he led the gathering of the first people's militia. Later became the head of the second.

Minin's appeal to the people of Nizhny Novgorod

The impetus for the beginning of the formation of the army was an appeal to the people, uttered by Kuzma Minin at the walls of the Ivanovskaya tower of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin.

It spoke of the need to raise funds and the necessary things for the needs of the militia.

Also, letters were sent to neighboring cities and provinces to convene peasants, townspeople and small peasants to participate in the liberation of the fatherland. Even representatives of the nobility and merchants, who became leaders of individual detachments, responded to Minin's call.

Thus, by March 1612, the second militia consisted of about 10 thousand people of different classes.

When the Poles captured Moscow

By the time of the formation of the people's army, the combined Polish-Lithuanian garrison under the command of S. Zholkevsky had already occupied the territory of Moscow for 2 years: the Kremlin, Kitay-Gorod and the White City.

Polish troops successfully repulsed the attacks of the troops of False Dmitry II, having elevated King Vladislav IV to the Russian throne. In August 1610, the Seven Boyars - the government of Russia, consisting of boyars - spiritual leaders and Moscow residents swore an oath to the new ruler.

Campaign of Minin and Pozharsky to Moscow

The detachment set out from Novgorod in the spring of 1612. Moving towards Yaroslavl, the army, reinforced by volunteers from nearby towns and villages and money from the local treasury, grew.

In Yaroslavl, the "Council of All the Earth" was created - the new government of Russia, which was headed by nobles and leaders of the militia. An active struggle for cities and districts continued, which significantly increased the composition of the army and its glory as liberators among the Russian people.

The defeat of Hetman Khodkevich and the liberation of Moscow from the Polish invaders

Meanwhile, the 12,000-strong army of Hetman Khodkevich was advancing towards Moscow to help the Polish invaders besieged by a detachment of Cossacks led by Prince Dmitry Trubetskoy. Upon learning of this, Pozharsky sent two detachments of liberators towards Moscow.

On August 22, Prince Pozharsky went to the Moskva River, near which the hetman's army was located on the Maiden's Field. The fierce battle lasted three days, with breaks for short rests. As a result, Khodkevich's army was defeated and fled.

The feat of Minin and Pozharsky

But a considerable part of the Poles were still hiding behind the walls of Moscow. Due to the lack of food, a terrible famine began, forcing the besieged Polish soldiers to eat human flesh.

Prince Pozharsky invited the besieged to peacefully leave the walls of the Kremlin, which was initially refused. But soon the Poles agreed and left the city alive.

On October 27, 1612, a solemn entry of Pozharsky's troops into the gates of the Kremlin and a great prayer service took place in honor of the saviors of Russia and the liberation of the capital.

The role of Minin and Pozharsky in the history of Russia

The historical role of the feat of Minin and Pozharsky is to create a special patriotic atmosphere, which was able to raise the morale of both peasants and wealthy people.

Only thanks to this heroic wave, which swept the entire northern part of Russia and reached the walls of Moscow, did the future liberation from Polish-Lithuanian influence and the accession to the throne of the first tsar of the Romanov family, Mikhail Fedorovich, become possible.

The battle for Moscow between the Russian and Polish troops resumed a day later, on August 24 (September 3), 1612. August 23 passed without a fight. Hetman Khodkevich regrouped his forces, moved the camp to the Donskoy Monastery, now preparing to advance in Zamoskvorechye, on the Trubetskoy site. Despite serious losses, the hetman did not lose hope of breaking into the Kremlin. The plan of the Polish commander was as follows: to launch an offensive through Zamoskvorechye and, at the same time, with a sortie of Strus from the Kremlin, to tie down the actions of Pozharsky's militia.

The Polish command noted the inaction of Trubetskoy on the day of the decisive battle, as well as the relative weakness of the Russian fortifications in this direction. Here the road through the conflagration was blocked by two Cossack prisons. One from the outside - at the Serpukhov Gate, near the Church of St. Clement, the other - from the inside, at the Church of St. George. At night, the traitor nobleman Orlov, who received from Sigismund III for a denunciation of Prince Pozharsky a document on the right to own his estate, led 600 haiduks with a small convoy through the posts. They quietly passed along the right bank of the river through the sovereign's garden, crossed the log Zamoskvoretsky bridge and made their way to the Kremlin, passing food to the besieged. On the way back, the haiduks, taking advantage of the carelessness of Trubetskoy's Cossacks, captured the prison and the Church of George and fortified themselves there.

Pozharsky, apparently guessing about the plans of the enemy, also regrouped his forces. He, with Minin and the governors, went to the church of Ilya Obydenny on Ostozhenka. The main forces of the militia were transferred to the banks of the Moskva River in order to cover the former direction and at the same time be able to provide assistance across the river. The detachments of Dmitriev and Lopata-Pozharsky were also drawn here from the Petrovsky, Tversky and Nikitsky gates. About a third of his troops (infantry, cavalry and two cannons) Pozharsky sent to the right bank of the river in order to stand in the direction of a probable enemy offensive.

It was much more difficult to defend Zamoskvorechye than the left bank of the Moscow River. Instead of the stone walls of the White City, there were only the ditches and ramparts of the Wooden City with the remains of a half-burnt and half-ruined wooden wall and a prison on Pyatnitskaya Street. The second prison in Endov was now in the hands of Pan Neverovsky. In addition, pits and ruins on the site of the burnt-out Zamoskvoretsky quarters could serve as protection for the militias. In addition to this, Trubetskoy's Cossacks dug many trench pits for shooters. Knowing that the enemy was dominated by cavalry, Prince Pozharsky placed his archers along the moat of the Earthen City, where two cannons were placed. Hundreds of selected cavalry were moved forward behind Zemlyanoy Val with the task of taking the first blow from the hetman's troops. Trubetskoy was on the banks of the Moskva River (near the Luzhniki Stadium). His militias occupied the prison near the church of St. Clement, at the junction of Pyatnitskaya and Ordynka, blocking the path to the Kremlin here. Part of the Cossack troops was advanced forward Zemlyanoy Val.

Hetman Chodkiewicz built an army and was about to strike the main blow from his left flank. The left flank was led by the hetman himself. In the center, the Hungarian infantry, the regiment of Neverovsky and the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks of Zborovsky were advancing. The right flank consisted of 4 thousand Cossacks under the command of Ataman Shiray. As Prince Pozharsky later recalled, the hetman's troops marched "by a cruel custom, hoping for many people." That is, the hetman repeated a frontal attack without showing tactical flexibility, hoping to break the enemy's resistance by direct force.

Decisive battle

On August 24 (September 3), 1612, the decisive battle took place, which determined the entire outcome of the Moscow battle. It lasted from dawn to evening and was extremely stubborn and fierce. In many ways, it repeated the battle of August 22 (September 1). Khodkevich, continuing to have a significant advantage in the cavalry, again used a massive cavalry strike. The enemy was again met by Pozharsky's horsemen. Both sides fought hard, not wanting to give up.

From the Donskoy Monastery, Khodkevich sent fresh reinforcements, trying to turn the battle in his favor. As a result, soon almost all of Khodkevich's forces were drawn into the battle. Mounted hundreds of the Second Home Guard held back the advance of the Polish army for five hours. Finally, they could not stand it and leaned back. Some Russian hundreds were "trodden" into the ground. The retreat of the hundreds of cavalry was erratic, the nobles tried to swim to the other side. Prince Pozharsky personally left his headquarters and tried to stop the flight. This failed, and soon the entire cavalry went to the other side of the Moscow River. At the same time, the center and the right flank of the hetman's army managed to push back Trubetskoy's people. The Hungarian infantry broke through at the Serpukhov Gate. The Polish troops pushed back the militias and the Cossacks to the rampart of the Zemlyanoy Gorod.

Having seized the initiative at the beginning of the battle, Hetman Khodkevich ordered his mercenary infantry and dismounted Cossacks to begin an assault on the fortifications of Zemlyanoy Gorod. The militias held the defense here, firing from cannons, squeakers, bows, and engaging in hand-to-hand combat. At the same time, the Polish commander-in-chief began to bring to Moscow a convoy with food for the besieged garrison (400 wagons). A fierce battle continued on the rampart for several hours, then the militia could not withstand the onslaught of the enemy and began to retreat. Hetman himself led this offensive. Contemporaries recalled that the hetman "jumps around the regiment everywhere, like a lion, roaring at his own, orders his strength to be tightened."

There was confusion in the Russian camp. A significant part of the Russian militia pushed back from the ramparts of Zemlyanoy Gorod entrenched itself in the ruins of the burnt city. The warriors fortified as best they could and began to wait for the further offensive of the enemy. Russian infantry, planting in pits and city ruins, managed to slow down the enemy's advance. Polish horsemen among the ruins of the burned city could not act with due efficiency. Voivode Dmitry Pozharsky, during the battle, hurried part of the cavalry militias, thanks to which he created a superiority of infantry in the right place. In addition, the maneuverability of the Polish troops was hampered by a huge convoy, prematurely introduced by Khodkevich to the recaptured part of Zamoskvorechie.

However, the Polish troops were able to achieve another success. To break through to the Kremlin, Hetman Khodkevich had to take the Cossack prison from the church of St. Clement. The Hungarian infantry and the Cossacks of Zborovsky, who now formed the vanguard of the Polish army, broke through from the Serpukhov Gate into the depths of Zamoskvorechye and captured the Klimentevsky prison, killed and dispersed all its defenders. The Kremlin garrison also took part in the capture of the prison, which made a sortie to support the offensive. Thus, the advance detachments of the enemy broke through to the Kremlin itself. The Polish convoy with food reached the Church of Catherine and settled down at the end of Ordynka. However, despite their success during the first phase of the battle, the Poles were unable to consolidate their success. Khodkevich's army was already tired of the fierce battle and lost its strike power. The troops were stretched out, the actions were fettered by a large convoy, there was a shortage of infantry, which was necessary for operations inside the big city.

Meanwhile, Trubetskoy's Cossacks made a successful counterattack. The cellarer of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery Avraamy Palitsyn, who came to Moscow with the militia, went to the Cossacks of Trubetskoy, who were retreating from the prison, and promised to pay them a salary from the monastery treasury. As Avraamy Palitsyn recalled, the Cossacks “because they ran out of the prison from St. Clement, and looked up at the prison of St. Clement, seeing Lithuanian banners on the church ... sensibly and sighing and shedding tears to God - there weren’t enough of them in number - and so returning and rushing unanimously they set about the prison, and after taking it, betrayed all the Lithuanian people to the edge of the sword and their supplies of poimash. The rest of the Lithuanian people were terribly afraid and returned back: they went to the city of Moscow, and others to their hetman; the Cossacks are chasing and beating them ... ".

Thus, the Cossacks repulsed Klimentovsky Ostrozhek with a decisive attack. The battle for the stronghold was bloody. Both sides took no prisoners. The Cossacks avenged their dead. In this battle, the enemy lost only 700 people killed. Chasing the surviving soldiers of Khodkevich along Pyatnitskaya Street, the militia and Cossacks broke into the second prison on the Endov from a raid. Here, together with the foot soldiers of Neverovsky, there were about a thousand interventionists. The enemy could not stand it and ran. Half of them managed to escape to the Kremlin along the Moskvoretsky bridge. As a result, the Polish army lost its best infantry, which was already scarce. But the Cossacks, after their heroic attack, were embarrassed, began to reproach the nobles who had fled from the battlefield and leave their positions.

There was a pause in the battle. Hetman Khodkevich tried to regroup his troops and start the offensive again. He was waiting for the sortie of the garrison, but Strus and Budila suffered such losses the day before that they no longer decided to attack. Taking advantage of this, Prince Pozharsky and Minin began to gather and inspire troops and decided to seize the initiative, organize a general counterattack and defeat the enemy. The immediate task was to regroup and concentrate forces in the direction of the main attack. Pozharsky and Minin turned for help to the cellar of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra Avraamy Palitsin, who was an intermediary between the "camps" and the militia. They persuaded him to go to the Cossacks and again raise them on the offensive. In addition, there is evidence that Minin also participated in negotiations with the Cossacks, urging the Cossacks to fight to the bitter end. By persuasion and preaching, Palitsyn managed to restore the morale of the Cossacks, who swore to each other to fight without sparing their lives. Most of the Cossacks demanded that Trubetskoy send his army to Zamoskvorechye, declaring: "Let's go and not turn back until we completely destroy the enemies." As a result, Trubetskoy's army turned back to the "Polyakhs" and, uniting with the militias who continued to hold the defense. The defensive line has been restored. At the same time, Pozharsky and Minin were able to put in order the hundreds of cavalry militia that had retreated earlier, gathering them against the Crimean court.

As soon as order in the army was restored, Prince Dmitry decided to go on the general offensive. By evening, the counteroffensive of the militias began. The signal to him was the swift attack of the detachment of Kuzma Minin, who at this decisive moment of the battle took the initiative into his own hands. He turned to Pozharsky with a request to give him people to hit the enemy. He said: "Take whoever you want." Minin took from the reserve detachments of the militia that stood at Ostozhenka, three hundred horse noblemen. Pozharsky, to help the hundreds of nobles, singled out another detachment of captain Khmelevsky, a Lithuanian defector, a personal enemy of one of the Polish magnates. At dusk, a small detachment of Minin imperceptibly crossed the Moscow River to strike from the left bank of the river to the flank of Khodkevich's army. The Russians knew that the hetman had committed all his reserves to the battle and that in the area of ​​the Crimean courtyard he had put up only a small detachment of two companies - horse and foot. The blow was so sudden that the Polish companies did not have time to prepare for battle and fled, sowing panic in their camp. Thus, Kuzma Minin, “the elected man of the whole earth,” managed to achieve a turning point in the battle at the decisive hour.

At the same time, the Russian infantry and dismounted cavalry went on the offensive against the camp of Hetman Khodkevich, "from the pits and sprinkled with a vise to the camps." The Poles recalled that the Russians "with all their might began to lean on the hetman's camp." The offensive was carried out on a broad front against the Polish camp and the ramparts of Zemlyanoy Gorod, where the hetman's troops were now defending themselves. Both the warriors of Pozharsky and the Cossacks of Trubetskoy attacked. “If all the Cossacks succeeded to the wagon train at the Great Martyr of Christ Catherine, the battle was great and terrible; the Cossacks severely and cruelly attacked the Lithuanian army: Ovi ubo Bosi, and others Nazis, only those who have weapons in their hands and beat them mercilessly. And the convoy of the Lithuanian people was torn apart.

The Polish army could not withstand such a decisive and single blow from the Russians and fled. The wooden city was cleared of the enemy. A huge convoy with food for the Kremlin garrison, stationed in the Ordynka area, was surrounded, and its defenders were completely destroyed. Rich trophies, artillery, Polish banners and tents fell into the hands of the winners. As a result of a general counterattack, the enemy was overturned along the entire front. Hetman Khodkevich began to hastily withdraw his army from the Zemlyanoy Val area. His defeat was completed by the Russian cavalry, which the governors Pozharsky and Trubetskoy threw to pursue the enemy. Hundreds of Poles were killed, many pans were captured.

Results

The Polish army was defeated and, having suffered heavy losses (of the Polish cavalry, Khodkevich had no more than 400 people left), the hetman's detachments retreated in disorder to the Donskoy Monastery, where they stood "in fear all night." The militia wanted to pursue the enemy, but the governors showed caution and held back the hottest heads, saying that "there are no two joys in one day." To intimidate the retreating enemy, archers, gunners and Cossacks were ordered to fire continuously. For two hours they fired so that, according to the chronicler, it was not audible who said what.

The Polish army lost its strike power and could no longer continue the battle. At dawn on August 25 (September 4), Hetman Khodkevich with his greatly depleted army "with great shame" ran through the Sparrow Hills to Mozhaisk and further through Vyazma to the borders of the Commonwealth. On the way, the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks abandoned him, preferring to hunt on their own.

The defeat of Hetman Khodkevich on the outskirts of Moscow predetermined the fall of the Polish garrison of the Kremlin. The departure of Khodkevich's troops horrified the Poles in the Kremlin. “Oh, how bitter it was for us,” recalled one of the besieged, “to watch the hetman retreat, leaving us to starve to death, and the enemy surrounded us from all sides, like a lion, gaping his mouth to swallow us, and, finally, took away we have a river. This battle was a turning point in the Time of Troubles. The Commonwealth lost the opportunity to seize the Russian state or a significant part of it. Russian forces began to restore order in the kingdom.

The battles of August 22-24 showed that neither the Second Zemstvo Militia, nor the Cossacks of the "camps" near Moscow on their own, only with their own forces, could not defeat the enemy. Despite the heavy defeat of Hetman Khodkevich, the Poles had rather large military forces on Russian soil. The Polish garrison was still sitting behind the strong Kremlin walls, numerous detachments of Polish adventurers and robbers roamed the country. Therefore, the question of uniting the disparate patriotic forces of the Second Zemstvo militia and the Cossack "camps" remained urgent. The joint battle rallied the militias, both armies joined forces, and a new triumvirate stood at the head of them - Trubetskoy, Pozharsky and Minin (under the nominal command of Trubetskoy).

In 1612, on this day, the second militia, led by D. Pozharsky and K. Minin, defeated the Polish troops of Hetman Khodkevich near Moscow.

In the winter of 1612, the Polish soldiers who did not receive a salary organized a confederation and left the city, under which the troops of Minin and Pozharsky soon appeared.
And at that moment, another great actor appeared on the scene - the hetman of Lithuania, Jan Karol Chodkiewicz, a commander famous for the defeat of the Swedes at Kirchholm. At first, everything went well, he even managed to achieve a smooth replacement of troops in the Kremlin garrison. But already on September 1, Khodkevich found himself face to face with detachments of militias. The battle at the walls of Moscow was inevitable.
This prospect did not upset the hetman in the least. On the contrary, like every old Polish commander, he had in his blood a craving for a decisive battle, despite the numerical superiority of the enemy. This was the worldview of a boxer who knew the strength of his blow (in our case, the attacks of the hussars) and at the same time his poor preparation (or a chronic lack of money for a long campaign) and sought to knock out his opponent as quickly as possible. The military art of the Commonwealth was mired in virtuous and all-pervasive squalor. The Polish army, as usual, had no chance in a mobile war with some kind of marches and countermarches. In addition, at that time, the Polish commanders were accustomed to victories, confident in themselves and the abilities of their subordinates. In the decisive battle, they beat everyone who came to hand, and not just the Moscow regiments, whose combat readiness they scornfully assessed. Usually everything ended in complete defeat, after which there was only a chase, massacre and trophies. But during the Moscow campaign the bar was raised higher. Here it was necessary to fight with the enemy, dug in the city, and certainly with street fighting. Such a prospect did not please the army, which was accustomed to deciding the outcome of the battle with a cavalry attack.
Chodkevich's goal was to deliver reinforcements to the Kremlin. This was the main and rather exotic criterion for victory in battle for the old Polish military art. However, the hetman did not know that the outcome of the struggle would not be determined in the first rounds - the fierce battle continued intermittently for two days. The numerical superiority of the enemy was not so impressive - against the ten thousandth hetman's army (1500 cavalry, 1800 infantry and about 7 thousand Cossacks), 14 thousand Pozharsky's detachments stood up, in which several thousand Cossacks also fought. So, one of the most important Polish-Russian battles was, in a certain sense, a battle between Cossacks and Cossacks.

Not enough 1800 meters
Chodkiewicz drew up a plan entirely in the spirit of the Polish military school. First, the cavalry (as usual with the hussars in the lead role) was supposed to crush the enemy on the outskirts of the city and, with the help of the infantry, capture the streets of the westernmost part of the city - Skorodoma. Secondly, a powerful convoy of a hundred wagons was supposed to enter the half-burnt city - a mobile fortress. The hetman managed to negotiate in advance with the commander of the Kremlin garrison, Mykolaj Strus (Gosevsky had long since left Moscow), who was supposed to carry out sabotage attacks in the rear of Pozharsky.
But the Polish commander was in for an unpleasant surprise: Pozharsky lined up his troops in two echelons, one wing obliquely to the other (a reception almost like that of the ancient Greek Epaminondas!), Which, under the threat of encirclement, forced Khodkevich to divide his modest forces. At the same time, the Poles fought with the river behind them. The joker in Pozharsky's deck was to be a noble detachment of several hundred, the command over which the prince gave to the head of the first militia, Dmitry Trubetskoy, who quarreled with him. The Moscow commander assumed that at the critical moment of the battle, the blow of this reserve detachment could hold back the breakthrough of the Poles.
The battle began on September 1 at about one in the afternoon. Despite the Klushinsky lesson, Khodkevich apparently believed that his battle-hardened units would instantly be able to defeat the opponent in the field and quickly penetrate into the city. But Pozharsky (who also did not learn the lesson of Klushinsky, when it was the attempt to seize the initiative that led to disaster) began to attack himself. Moscow soldiers (just like near Klushino) held out courageously - the battle on the plain continued until eight o'clock in the evening - it was almost eight hours of terrible slaughter. One of the eyewitnesses recalled that it was a mortal battle: “There was a great massacre, a great pressure from both sides, usually one leaned on the other fiercely, directing their spears and striking mortally; Arrows whistled in the air, spears broke, the dead fell thickly.
Finally, in the twilight of the fading day, the ranks of the Moscow soldiers began to crack. Pozharsky ordered his cavalry to return to the line of fortifications of Skorodom, where the archers dug in. Khodkevich threw Cossacks at them, who deftly dealt with the enemy and burst into the streets littered with ashes. Almost at the same moment Strus' soldiers struck from the Kremlin. The morale of the Russians was to - as it had happened before - fade away. The hetman was already king...
But at this time, amazingly, the battle began to take shape to the benefit of Pozharsky. Strusya's attack bogged down (most likely because his warriors were exhausted by hunger). The noble reserve of Pozharsky, placed under the command of Trubetskoy, got involved in the battle. The Cossacks of Trubetskoy came to his aid, somewhere even against the will of the commander, who sincerely despised Pozharsky. Here is the paradox of this battle - everything happened contrary to the wishes of those who fought!
In the darkness, the hetman's warriors began to fall more and more often. It was already one o'clock in the morning, the only thing left to do was to leave. Khodkevich's losses were alarming: on the first day almost a thousand soldiers were killed, mostly infantrymen and Cossacks. True, Pozharsky suffered no less losses, but he did not have to puzzle over how to deliver reinforcements to the Kremlin. Chodkiewicz still hoped to win. A day later (September 2, he moved into battle in the afternoon and failed to finish the battle before dark) attacked Skorodod from the south. And it was perhaps the best plan, which gave more chances for success. The Zamoskvorechye region was more extensive, but also more difficult to defend. Trubetskoy's detachments were smaller here (only 3-4 thousand soldiers, mostly Cossacks), and their morale was in doubt. However, several hundred fighters from Pozharsky's camp came to the rescue, but previous fights severely limited their capabilities. They did not want to accept battle in an open field.
As before, the Lithuanian hetman took up sabotage work. The Hungarian infantry sent by him to the Kremlin occupied one of the two Zamoskvoretsky churches turned into a fortress by Trubetskoy's Cossacks. Control over it brought dominance over the river crossing and the near section of the road that led into the heart of Moscow. Shortly thereafter, on September 3 at 6 o'clock in the morning, the hetman's detachments went into battle. However, only at noon they managed to knock out Pozharsky's banners from the shaft of Skorodoma. The prince himself was wounded. The Cossacks of Trubetskoy, seeing the retreat of the nobles, left their positions en masse and reached out to their camps. The hetman ordered a convoy to be brought into the city limits, which, however, quickly got stuck - and after all, the Poles were separated from the Kremlin at that moment by only some 1800 meters! The servants of the merchants, who, under the cover of the hetman's troops, were going to penetrate the Kremlin, had already begun clearing the main street. At the same time, a special detachment of Cossacks under the command of Alexander Zborovsky temporarily captured the second of the key fortresses in the area. Temporarily, because due to neglect of the supposedly defeated enemy, the guards of this place were too weak, and it was quickly repulsed by other Cossacks, this time by Prince Trubetskoy.
Chodkiewicz faced a serious threat. The clock was about to strike five o'clock in the evening, and the convoy of a hundred wagons was still sticking out among the ruins. At this time, the enemy began to gather forces again. In addition - and this is an extremely important detail for understanding the course of events - the wounded Pozharsky found an opportunity to strengthen the morale of his Cossacks. Unable to mount a horse, he sent Avraamy Palitsyn, a monk of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, to Trubetskoy's camp to persuade the Cossacks to fight. Throwing a heavy purse with money from the monastery vaults on the table, Palitsyn was able to raise the fellows to their feet. Such things have always flattered their vanity.
The blow of Trubetskoy's Cossacks brought a lightning-fast effect: the convoy of the Lithuanian hetman, attacked from several sides, was quickly defeated, and his servants were destroyed without exception. In the face of disaster, Chodkiewicz again ordered a retreat. This was the end of hopes to help the garrison. The hetman lost almost all of his infantry, and the cavalry also came out of this alteration, badly battered. There is nothing to remember about the Hetman Cossacks: a few days later they set off to seek their fortune (that is, booty) on their way. We had to retreat from the city. Two months later, the starving Polish garrison in the Kremlin - terrible things were happening there, with scenes of cannibalism - laid down their arms. Since then, Moscow has been expecting Polish soldiers for exactly 200 years: now they will come only with Napoleon.
And the question arises: why did Khodkevich, a commander fanned only with victories, lose in this battle, which (and not Klushino!) predetermined the outcome of the entire campaign? It can be assumed that if he had immediately hit the southern part of Skorodom, he would have been able to deliver his convoy to the Kremlin. Perhaps summed up the intelligence, which was usually the strength of the Polish military art. Fighting in the street is not the same as fighting in the field, where the flying cavalry quickly dealt with the enemy. But even without that, the hetman, as Henryk Sienkiewicz used to say, "gave some slack" here.

The history of a portrait on one medal

In 1800, a medal was minted, on the obverse of which was a half-length portrait of the great hetman of Lithuania, Jan Karol Chodkiewicz, and on the reverse, an inscription in Latin: “Consilio et virtute militari id fuit patriae quod suae in signiores greci et latini Dec.A. 1621”, the translation of which states: “With prudence and military prowess, he served the Motherland as outstanding Greeks and Latins. December 1621. Oddly enough, but not much is written about this commander in the main textbooks on the history of Belarus, and there is not a single line in the “Narysy of the history of Belarus” part 1 at all. Judging by the encyclopedia of the history of Belarus, in Poland he is well known, but we do not. Although, in fact, we should know the commander who stopped the Turkish invasion of Europe in 1621 (and especially if he comes from Belarus).

Jan Karol Chodkiewicz, the second son of Jan Geronimovich Chodkiewicz, general headman of Zhemoytsky and administrator of Livonia, was born in 1560 and was supposed to become a military man, since the Chodkiewicz family was rightfully considered one of the most famous in this field, starting from their distant ancestors - Kyiv boyars. His father in 1568 received the title of count from the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I and the coat of arms "Vulture with a sword" now flaunted the count's crown. While still very young, he was in the thick of the events of the Livonian War, as his father took him on a campaign, fighting against the troops of Ivan the Terrible.

Having received a preliminary education at home, in 1573 Jan Karol, together with his brother Alexander, began his studies at the Vilna Jesuit Collegium, and then at the Vilna Academy. King Stefan Batory himself, who in 1579 passed through Vilna with an army, blessed the student Chodkiewicz for military service. After the Vilna Academy, Jan Karol studied at the Jesuit Academy in Bavaria, where he got acquainted with the philosophy of law, then Italy and Malta, where he studied the art of artillery and fortification with the Knights of Malta. He happened to be abroad and practice military service under the Spanish banners, fighting against heretical Holland. He was acquainted with the outstanding generals Duke of Alba and Prince Moritz of Orange. Returning to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1590, he becomes a professional soldier.

He was always attracted by the cavalry, and already in 1595 he commanded his own cavalry company. In 1596, under the command of the crown hetman Zholkevsky, he participated in the defeat of the rebel army of Severin Nalivaiko, whose Cossacks, judging by the Barkulabov Chronicle, robbed and burned more than fought for the freedom of ordinary people in the Mogilev region. Even then Khodkevich showed his military talent near Kanev and Lubny. having received for his merits the position of a subchaser of Lithuania, and in 1599 he became the headman of Zhemoyt and the senator of the Commonwealth.

He is on the move all the time. 1600 - participation in the campaign with Jan Zamoysky to Moldavia, which was then captured by the Wallachian ruler Mihai Vityazul. After the victory, Jan Zamoyski named Jan Karol Chodkiewicz among the best. It was for this that in 1601 Chodkiewicz became full Lithuanian hetman, and from 1603 he ruled Livonia.

In 1600, a long war began with Sweden for dominance in the Baltic Sea. The Polish king and Grand Duke of Lithuania Sigismund III this year included Estland in the Commonwealth, which became a pretext for war on the part of his Swedish relative Charles of Südermanland (the future King of Sweden Charles IX).

It was in Livonia that hetman full Jan Karol Chodkiewicz glorified his name in Europe, leading the winged cavalry (armored hussars) in the battle of Kokenhausen on June 8, 1601, being on the right flank of the Belarusian-Lithuanian army. In early October, the king entrusted the command of the army in Livonia to Jan Karol Chodkiewicz.

Khodkevich won several battles in the Livonian campaign, but the most important battle that glorified him took place on September 27, 1605 near Kirchholm, 15 km from Riga, where he skillfully led both the cavalry and artillery of the Belarusian-Lithuanian army. 3 hours - and the Swedish army, 3 times larger than the Litvinian army, was defeated, leaving 6 thousand soldiers only killed on the battlefield; 60 standards and 12 cannons became the trophies of Khodkevich, and the loss of his troops amounted to 100 people killed and 200 wounded. The fame of the new great commander swept through many countries of the world. The English king, the Turkish sultan, the Persian shah, the German emperor, and even Pope Paul V, through his ambassador, congratulated the hetman on the victory of Chodkiewicz. And how many books, poems were written in hot pursuit. Even the unifier of the Catholic and Orthodox churches, Peter Skarga, wrote about this battle.

The long war with the Swedes led to the indignation of the gentry against the king. The rokosh of the Krakow governor Nikolai Zebrzydowski openly opposed the royal power, relying on numerous dissatisfied.

Faithful to the oath, Jan Karol Khodkevich condemned the opposition at the congress of the Belarusian-Lithuanian gentry in Novogrudok, and then, with 1,600 loyal soldiers, stood under the royal banners. On July 6, 1607, the Rokoshans were defeated near Guzov, but Khodkevich did not pursue the vanquished, because the war with Sweden was not over yet.

In 1607, Chodkiewicz returned to Livonia, where within a few months he restored the power of King Sigismund III, forcing the Swedes to negotiate and conclude a truce (from 1611 to 1617).

At that moment, the war with the Moscow state began, it began with the so-called "Dmitriada", when the magnates of the Commonwealth decided to determine the fate of their eastern neighbor, using impostors on the Russian throne. Khodkevich was initially against the war with Russia, he signed a letter from the Orsha gentry to the king that they did not need a war. But when it nevertheless began, he, as a great hetman, could not stand aside.

True, this time military happiness betrayed the commander:- in April 1611, he stood with the army under the walls of the Pechora Monastery near Pskov for 6 weeks and could not take it;- in the autumn of 1611 he went on a campaign against Moscow to help the besieged garrison of the Kremlin, was forced to retreat.Then he went to Moscow three more times in 1611-1612. And again failure. It did not help that both the king and the prince were together. On August 31, 1612, 1800 meters did not reach the Kremlin; having reached Bolshaya Ordynka Street, he lost 500 people and a convoy with provisions. This also decided the fate of the Kremlin besieged - they capitulated to the militia of K. Minin and Prince D. Pozharsky.

In 1617, Jan Karol Khodkevich went on his last campaign against Moscow (14,000 soldiers and 20,000 Cossacks of Hetman Piotr Konashevich Sahaydachny). And again defeat.These campaigns, or rather, the defeats in them, once again confirmed the historical truth: no matter how talented the commander is, no matter how courageous and courageous his warriors are, but when the people rise up against them, then victories will become defeats. Khodkevich also had a chance to test this truth on himself.

In fact, both states were weakened in this war. Prince Vladislav went to negotiate with Russia, and in 1618, in the village of Deulino (not far from Moscow), a temporary truce was concluded until 1633.

And again the war a few years later. Only after solving his family problems (Jan Karol in 1620 remarried the 20-year-old orphan Ganna Ostrozhskaya, but at her request, since she was going to a monastery, he did not enter into the rights of her husband, which once again emphasizes the nobility of the hetman), the old the commander led the army of the Commonwealth in the war with the Turks. In the area of ​​​​the Khotyn fortress on the Moldavian bank of the Dniester, he decided to give a general battle to Sultan Osman II (and again, as in the Kirchholm battle with the Swedes, the ratio of forces was 1: 3). The battle lasted 6 weeks. On September 24, 1621, having handed over the mace of the commander-in-chief to Stanislav Lubomirsky, the great hetman died. He was given last honors by his winged hussars, and the Turks tried twice more to storm the camp of Khodkevich's troops, having learned of his death. Unsuccessfully. And on October 9, 1621, peace was signed between the two powers.

Noting this posthumous victory of Khodkevich, I would like to add that in the Grodno farny church there is a bas-relief on the altar of St. Stanislav Kostka, dedicated to the Battle of Khotyn. According to legend, the Jesuit priest Nikolai Oborsky, praying far from Khotyn in Poznan, received a vision of how St. Stanislav in the clouds above the battlefield asked St. Virgin Mary for help to those fighting for the Commonwealth. And this help was provided by the Mother of God. True, it is impossible to say for sure, since St. Kostka is a patron and prayer book for two more battles, including the famous Battle of Vienna in 1683, when the Turks were defeated by another commander, Jan Sobieski.

Another interesting fact related to the famous commander refers to the Church of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary Bolshaya Berestovitsa in the Grodno region. Dying, Jan Karol Chodkiewicz bequeathed to bury his heart in this church. Why, no one knows, but in his younger years, Jan Karol Chodkiewicz repeatedly visited his Berestovitsky relatives, and there is a legend that the young magnate was in love, but marriage between young people was impossible (he was painfully unequal).Whether it was so or not, this is a mystery of the historical local history of the Grodno region, and neither confirmation nor refutation of this legend can be found.

Literature:

1. Barkulabaўskі letapіs PSRL v.32 p. 195
2. History of Belarus in two parts, part 1 Mn. “Universitsetskae” 2000. st.207-208
3. History of Belarus v3 Minsk UE “Ekaperspektyva” 2004 st33-42
4. Encyclopedia of History of Belarus v.6(II) Mn. Bel. Encycle. 2003 st.55-56
5. A.N. Narbut "Genealogy of Belarus" Issue 3 Moscow 1995. pp. 134-138
6. A. Kotlyarchuk “Swedes and history of culture of Belarus” Mensk Entsyklapedyks 2002
7. M. Czarnyaўsky “Rights of the winged leaders: Jan Karal Khadkevich” Mn. 1998
8. “Glorious names of Batskaushchyna” collection Issue 1 (Uladimir Gilep) Mn. BFC 2000
9. P.G. Chigrinov “Essays on the history of Belarus” Mn. “Higher School” 2000
10. M. Ermalovich “Belarusian Dzyarzhava Vyalіkae Principality of Lithuania” Mn. “Bellitfond” 2000
11. "Memory of the Berastavitsky district" Minsk BELTA 1999.
12. Podhorodecki L. “Dzieje rodu Chodkiewiczow” Warszawa 1997
13. N.Rouba.” Przewodnik po Litwie I Bialejrusi” Wilno 1909-Gdansk 1995
14. T. Bohun, Ya. Kravchik “One Hundred Carts of Khodkevich” from “Motherland” No. 11. 2005.

Pozharsky at the Battle of Moscow

In 1612 there was a great battle for Moscow with the Poles, when Minin and Pozharsky raised the people's militia and the interventionists from Poland and Lithuania were expelled from Moscow.

Deployment of troops

On the night of August 19-20, Pozharsky's army approached Moscow and camped for the night on the Yauza River, five miles from the capital.

The Cossack camp was located at the Yauza Gates, away from the Smolensk road, along which Khodkevich's army was marching. Pozharsky sought, first of all, to occupy the western outskirts of Moscow and block the path of Hetman Khodkevich. After spending the night on the banks of the Yauza, Pozharsky's army marched on Moscow on the morning of August 20.

Pozharsky ordered to build earthen fortifications, dig trenches to accommodate archers with a "fiery battle". Part of the pishchalnikov was located on the walls of the White City.

Despite the fact that Pozharsky refused to unite with the Cossack army, he gave Trubetskoy, at his request, five hundred horsemen. Trubetskoy was supposed to hit Khodkevich's rear on the flanks from the right bank of the Moskva River from Zamoskvorechye.

Deploying troops, Pozharsky all the time watched the actions of the enemy, for which divorces were sent. On August 21, intelligence reported that the hetman set out from the village of Vyazemy and stopped seven miles from Moscow on Poklonnaya Hill. Pozharsky unraveled the enemy's plan.

Khodkevich set himself the task of getting ahead of Pozharsky at all costs, getting into the Kremlin through the Chertol Gates, strengthening the Polish garrison stationed there, and most importantly, supplying him with food and thus giving him the opportunity to hold out until King Sigismund arrived in Moscow with a large army.

Pozharsky's position was not easy. It was necessary to distribute forces in such a way that, simultaneously with the fight against Khodkevich, they would repel the blows of the troops of Colonel Strus, who had settled in the Kremlin. On the night of August 22, Hetman Khodkevich crossed the Moskva River at the Novodevichy Convent and began to prepare for the offensive. He expected to deliver his main blow to Pozharsky's troops in the Chertolsky Gate area.

Pozharsky lined up his troops in battle formation: he moved hundreds of horsemen forward, and placed infantrymen in the trenches of Zemlyanoy Val. The battle began early in the morning, at one o'clock in the afternoon.

Battle for Moscow. First stage.

At the first stage of the battle, the battle was fought by large masses of cavalry. Having a numerical superiority in forces, the hetman decided to break the resistance of Pozharsky with a blow of the elite cavalry and unite with the Kremlin garrison. Pozharsky decided to frustrate the hetman's plan and advanced a strong cavalry detachment to meet him. Thus, at the first stage, the battle took place somewhere in the area between the Novodevichy Convent and the Wooden City. As a result of a bloody four-hour battle, the enemy pushed the militias to Zemlyanoy Val. The critical hours of the battle have arrived. Here is what the chronicler wrote about this: “And the Lithuanian cavalry companies pressed the Russian people, then they came by many people on foot, attacking the walls” 1 .

In this regard, it should be noted that the course of the battle near Moscow on August 22 is still not quite correctly covered in the literature. For example, the bourgeois noble historian I. E. Zabelin in his study “Minin and Pozharsky” 2 writes that the Russian cavalrymen were less experienced and skillful than the Poles and Hungarians, so they dismounted and began to fight in hand-to-hand combat. A. Savich and O. Rovinsky adhere to the same opinion in their brochure. 3

However, from the documents of those times it is known that at the first stage of the battle there really was a horse fight. And only about two o'clock in the afternoon Khodkevich set in motion the infantry and began the offensive with all his forces. Consequently, only after a long equestrian battle did the infantry enter the battle.

The second stage of the battle began. Khodkevich delivered a strong blow to the left wing of the Russian troops, pinning them to the banks of the Moskva River. The battle mainly broke out in the Wooden City, which had many trenches and various fortifications. Consequently, Dimitry Pozharsky did not order the Russian cavalry to dismount because it was “less experienced” than the enemy’s cavalry, but because it could not act on rough terrain, on ramparts and prisons. In addition, dismounting the cavalry, Pozharsky pursued another goal - to strengthen his infantry.

Despite the fact that the Poles from the walls of the Kremlin fired on the Russians with cannons, the latter not only did not retreat, but, according to sources, captured the banners from the enemy, killed many Poles and forced them to turn back. In this battle, the nephew of Kuzma Minin, the warrior Eremkin, stood out for his courage and fearlessness.

While Pozharsky's militia, waging an unequal battle, struck at the advancing enemy from the front and rear, Prince Trubetskoy continued to stand on the right bank of the Moskva River in the area of ​​​​the Crimean Courtyard (now the territory of the M. Gorky Park of Culture and Rest) and watch how Russian warriors, bleeding, heroically repelled enemy attacks.

Seeing the treacherous behavior of Trubetskoy, the commanders of the cavalry hundreds, transferred on the eve of the battle by Pozharsky to Trubetskoy, on their own initiative crossed the river and hit the flank and rear of the enemy. Their example was followed by Trubetskoy's militias. The Cossack chieftains Kozlov, Mezhakov, Kolomna and Romanov, having reproached their leader that “the army and Russia are perishing in vain from the disagreement of the chiefs”, also arbitrarily crossed to the left bank of the Moscow River and took part in the battle. Thus, the strike of Pozharsky's cavalry troops on the flank of the enemy decided the outcome of the battle. Khodkevich, suffering heavy losses, was forced to hastily retreat with his army across the Moscow River to the Sparrow Hills.

Thus ended the battle on 22 August. Despite heavy losses in men and cavalry, Khodkevich did not lose hope of breaking through to the Kremlin and helping the beleaguered garrison of Strus.

The defeat of the Polish army

On the night of August 22-23, Khodkevich managed, with the help of the traitor nobleman Orlov, to smuggle 600 haiduks with a convoy to the Kremlin. On August 23, the main forces of Khodkevich concentrated in the area of ​​the Donskoy Monastery. Hetman was preparing for a new offensive. Having guessed the enemy's plan, Dimitry Pozharsky made the following regrouping of troops. Taking into account the fact that the area in Zamoskvorechye was less protected than on the left bank of the Moskva River, Pozharsky prudently deployed detachments, skillfully using ditches, ramparts and the remains of the walls of the Earthen City, as well as the fortresses that had fallen into disrepair.

Knowing that the enemy would, first of all, conduct an offensive with cavalry troops, Pozharsky deployed detachments of archers along the moat of Zemlyanoy Gorod. Selected cavalry detachments were advanced forward, beyond the Zemlyanoy Val, with the task of taking the first blow from Khodkevich's troops. The guns were mounted on earthen ramparts. Trubetskoy's Cossacks occupied Klimentovsky Ostrozhek (Pyatnitskaya Street), part of the troops was advanced forward of Zemlyanoy Val.

At dawn on August 24, the Poles, led by Hetman Khodkevnch, went on the offensive. The main forces of the troops, concentrated on the left flank, struck at Pozharsky's troops, who were covering the right bank of the river.

Attaching great importance to the upcoming battle, not counting on Trubetskoy's Cossacks, Pozharsky additionally transports part of the troops to the right bank of the Moscow River. Having a numerical superiority, the hetman brought down the blow of his entire cavalry on the cavalry detachment of Dmitry Pozharsky.

The militias stubbornly resisted, holding back the onslaught of the enemy.

Advancing from two sides - from the Serpukhov Gate and from the Kremlin - the gentry, after a short fight, captured Klimentovsky Ostrozhek. Having entrenched himself in this area, the hetman brought food wagons there. The danger of Hetman Khodkevich's troops breaking through to the Kremlin increased. With a swift counterattack from both sides of the troops of Pozharsky and Trubetskoy, the enemy was driven back and pinned down from all sides. A stubborn fight ensued, and this time Khodkevich failed to break through to the Kremlin.

Taking advantage of the confusion of the enemy, Minin and Pozharsky, quickly orienting themselves in the current situation, worked out a counterattack plan for the final defeat of the interventionists. Having created a shock fist, which consisted mainly of militia troops that did not participate in the battle (reserve) that day, Minin and Pozharsky advanced it to the region of northern Zamoskvorechye.

In addition, at the request of Kuzma Minin, Pozharsky assigned him a detachment of captain Khmelevsky and three hundred selected noble cavalry to strike from the left bank of the river in the flank of Khodkevich. It was a very important idea. Minin knew that the hetman had used up all his reserves, that he had only a small barrier in the area of ​​the Crimean Court.

The day was fading into evening. The decisive hours of the battle drew near. As soon as the Cossacks took up positions in Zamoskvorechye, the Russian troops launched a decisive offensive. Minin's swift attack was the signal for this.

Secretly, under the cover of the onset of darkness, Minin crossed the Moskva River and swiftly rushed to the two hetman companies stationed in the Crimean courtyard. The blow was so sudden that the enemy, not having time to resist, rushed to run.

Convinced that the garrison besieged in the Kremlin could not help him, at dawn on August 25, the hetman withdrew to Sparrow Hills, and from there he went through Mozhaisk to the Lithuanian border.

The Poles, besieged in Kitay-gorod and the Kremlin, watched with horror the retreat of Khodkevich's troops. “Oh, how bitter it was for us,” recalls one of those besieged in the Kremlin, “to watch the hetman retreat, leaving us to starve to death, and the enemy surrounded us from all sides, like a lion, gaping its mouth to swallow us, and, finally took the river from us.

Thus ended the battle near Moscow, which culminated in the complete victory of the people's militia over the well-armed and outnumbered troops of the interventionists.

Conclusion

From the point of view of the development of military art, the battles near Moscow (August 22 and 24) are an example of the skillful use by Minin and Pozharsky of all the advantages of the Russian militia over the troops of the interventionists.

Despite the fact that the Russian militia was not a regular army, and was inferior to the Polish-Lithuanian troops in terms of the number of forces and weapons, it fought for the just cause of liberating the Motherland from foreign invaders. The Russian militia was led by such outstanding patriotic commanders as Minin and Pozharsky, nominated by the people and able to develop in Russian warriors their unsurpassed qualities: fearlessness, firmness of mind and mutual assistance in battle.

The numerical superiority gave the enemy some advantages in the initial moments of the battles on August 22 and 24. But in the most decisive periods of the battle, the morale of the Russian militia and the military genius of Minin and Pozharsky ensured his victory over the enemy.

In these battles, the brilliant military talents of Dmitry Pozharsky and his exceptional courage were fully manifested. Directly directing the course of the battle, the prince appeared in the most dangerous places and inspired the warriors to heroic deeds by personal example. Pozharsky's location of the main forces on the path of the hetman's movement speaks of fearlessness and the desire to defeat the enemy, preventing him from reaching Moscow.

Literature

1 Russian Historical Library, vol. XIII, ed. 2, S.-Pb., 1909, p. 1216.

2 I. Zabelin. Minin and Pozharsky. M., 1999.

3 A. Savic and O. Rovinsky, The Defeat of the Polish Intervention in the 17th Century. M., 1938, p. 52.

4 "For the native land" Moscow, Voenizdat, 1949, p. 162.