Dmitry Donskoy at Kulikovo 1380: Burned Bridges and a Prince in Disguise

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Dmitry Ivanovich became Prince of Moscow in 1359 at nine years old, in a Rus' of squabbling principalities that paid tribute to the Golden Horde. The Khan took the title of Grand Prince of Vladimir from Moscow, but the city's boyars won it back by 1365 with bribes and force. As an adult Dmitry defied the Horde's authority: in 1375 he forced Mikhail of Tver, who held a decree from the warlord Mamai, into a humiliating treaty. The Horde, split by decades of civil war, could not respond at once. Dmitry refused Mamai's higher tribute demands, captured Bulgar in 1376, and in 1378 beat a Mongol force at the Vozha River by blocking the crossing.

In 1380 Mamai allied with Lithuania and Ryazan and marched on Moscow. Dmitry gathered a coalition at Kolomna, crossed the Don on September 8, ordered the bridges destroyed, and fought on the narrow Kulikovo field, where ravines, oak groves and rivers stopped the Horde from outflanking him. The victory earned him the name Donskoy, of the Don, but in 1382 the Khan Tokhtamysh, a true descendant of Genghis Khan, burned Moscow and forced it back into submission. Kulikovo still broke the belief that the Horde could not be beaten.

• Dmitry gave his royal armor to the boyar Mikhail Brenok, who stood under the main banner as a decoy while Dmitry fought in plain armor.
• The Horde cut down the banner and killed Brenok, believing it had killed the Russian commander.
• An ambush regiment of heavy cavalry under Dmitry's brother-in-law waited in an oak grove until the Russian left flank was collapsing, then struck.
• The Russians chased the broken Horde army for about 50 kilometers, though some sources say a third of the Russian commanders died.
• Early chronicles had Dmitry fighting unhurt, while later church texts said he was found wounded and unconscious under a felled tree.