The Presidential Library marking the anniversary of Prince Dmitry Donskoy. "Dmitry was born for the Throne"

October 12, 2020 marks the 670th anniversary of the birth of the holy blessed prince of Moscow and Vladimir Dmitry Ivanovich Donskoy.

Prince Dmitry went down in history as the winner in the Battle of Kulikovo (Mamai), who united and liberated the Russian lands. Materials of the electronic collection on the Presidential Library’s portal, which includes various studies and transcriptions of ancient Russian sources, illustrate his life and state activities, victorious battles with the Golden Horde.

The eldest son of Prince of Moscow Ivan II the Red and his second wife Princess Alexandra Ivanovna, grandson of the famous Ivan Kalita, Dmitry was born on October 12, 1350 in Moscow. His father died early, bequeathing all his possessions to his sons - Dmitry and his younger brother Semyon. Three years later, after the death of Semyon, 12-year-old Dmitry began to rule alone. His guardian and mentor, who replaced the boy's father, was Metropolitan Alexy Byakont, a strong and authoritative man who became in those years the de facto ruler of Russia, with whom Dmitry often consulted in his mature years. Soviet prose writer Sergei Borodin told about this in his book Dmitry Donskoy (1942): “Dmitry was not yet nine years old when Ivan Ivanovich died and the boy became the Grand Duke of Moscow. The neighboring principalities decided that the long-awaited hour had come to get free from Moscow... But the Moscow boyars... did not yield. <...> Moscow put little Dmitry on a war horse and moved to the obstinate principalities.

The first dispute arose between Dmitry of Moscow and Dmitry of Suzdal. <...> Moscow troops invaded the area... where Dmitry of Suzdal was. The old cunning Dmitry fled before the squads of thirteen-year-old Dmitry and submitted... Without dissolving the army, in the same 1363 Dmitry subdued Prince Konstantin of Rostov, and the princes Ivan Starodubsky and Dmitry Galitsky expelled from their principalities. <...> In 1372, Prince Oleg of Ryazan ... unexpectedly appeared with a large army in the original Moscow lands, demanding them for himself. <...> The Ryazan people, who significantly outnumbered the Muscovites... were ill-prepared for the battle...The wounded Oleg barely escaped, leaving the borders of his principality. In the same year 1372, Mikhail of Tver persuaded the Lithuanian prince Algirdas, his brother-in-law, to help him in the fight against Dmitry. Algirdas, having collected considerable forces, moved to Moscow".   

Prince Algirdas made three attempts to seize power from young Dmitry, but all of them were unsuccessful, and peace was made with Prince Mikhail of Tver after the defeat of his troops. “So one after another the princedoms of Suzdal, Galitsky, Nizhegorolskoye, Starodubskoye, Tarusa, Belozerskoye and many others joined it without a fight, fell and submitted to Moscow. From year to year, the circle of cities that were guilty of going on a long campaign after Moscow Dmitry expanded”, - continues Sergei Borodin.

The need for such a campaign is long overdue. “The idea of ​​this historical vocation of Moscow - to gather Russian forces to overthrow the Tatar yoke for a long time already lurked in the Russian soul, illuminated at times by the Russian consciousness and by the time Dmitry Ioannovich came to adulthood, became an urgent task”, - noted historian Mikhail Koyalovich in the book “The Battle of Kulikovo and its significance in the history of Russian statehood and the Russian Church” (1880).

The ruler of the Golden Horde, Khan Mamai, worried about the growth of the power and independence of the Moscow principality, which refused to pay tribute, in 1378 he sent an army to Russia led by an experienced commander Murza Begich. The Tatar cavalry was defeated by Russian troops on Ryazan land near the Vozha River. The enraged Mamai began to gather troops for a retaliatory strike, adding the hired Kosozh (Circassian) cavalry and the Genoese infantry to the Tatars and Polovtsy, and having entered into an alliance with the Lithuanian prince Yagailo and the Ryazan prince Oleg. 

Prince Dmitry, learning about the impending attack of the Horde, sent out messengers to collect Russian troops in Kolomna. After the review, the gathered numerous Russian army set out on a campaign and approached the Don. The troops of Dmitry Ivanovich were lined up for battle on the right bank, but a reserve detachment remained in the forest, the attack of which later decided the outcome of the battle.

The Battle of Kulikovo took place on September 8, 1380 and ended in a brilliant victory for the Russian troops under the command of Prince Dmitry, who was nicknamed "Donskoy" in honor of this event. The battle in which Dmitry fought personally, in the clothes of a simple warrior, and was wounded, was of great historical importance, accelerating the collapse of the weakened Golden Horde and strengthening the authority of the Moscow principality in the unification of the Russian lands.

After the victory, Dmitry commemorated the fallen Orthodox soldiers in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra and proposed that such funeral services for all those who died in battles become annual and be held on Saturday before October 26 - the day of his heavenly patron Dmitry Solunsky. Over time, this day - Dmitrievskaya Saturday – has become a universal day of remembrance in Rus’.

Dmitry Donskoy was glorified in history not only as a valiant warrior and talented commander, but also as an outstanding statesman. The writer and philosopher Theophylact Pokrovsky described him in the following publication “Dimitry Ioannovich Donskoy, Grand Duke of Moscow” (1823): “He was righteous - without hypocrisy; fair - without rigidity; generous - without extravagance; prudent - without vanity. Dmitry was born for the Throne. <…> Further, we find majesty in him - without pride, benevolence - without baseness, severity, exactingness - without rancor, justice - without partiality".

Under Dmitry, the Moscow principality became the center of the unification of Russian lands, and Vladimir Grand Duchy - the hereditary property of the Moscow princes. He was the first Grand Duke who, without asking permission from the Horde Khan, bequeathed reign to his eldest son Vasily. In total, the prince had 12 children. Married to the daughter of the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod prince, Evdokia, he lived for almost a quarter of a century. Their wedding took place when the Moscow prince was 15 years old, and the bride was two years younger. The youngest son of Dmitry Donskoy, Konstantin, was born just a few days before the death of his father.

According to tradition, the prince's wife was to take monastic tonsure after his death. However, Evdokia did not do this, continuing to take care of her children, supporting Basil I in the management of the principality. Only after all her children had acquired families, she accepted monasticism under the name of Euphrosinia and is now considered the patroness of Moscow, whose appearance has changed dramatically during the reign of Dmitry. Thus, instead of a burnt wooden one, a white-stone Kremlin was erected, Simonov and Andronikov monasteries-fortresses were built, which protected the approaches to the city center, and many other temples and churches. Minting of silver coins was introduced in Moscow earlier than in other Russian principalities and lands.

“The image of Dmitry Donskoy has passed through the centuries. This tall and broad-shouldered man...strong and courageous, honest and modest, who did not like feasts and fun and devoted all the time to "military affairs", was a true son of the Russian people, reflecting in his activities its best features: courage, heroism, honesty, strictness towards oneself, selfless devotion, endurance and boundless love for the motherland", - wrote about him Professor Vladimir Mavrodin in the book "Dmitry Donskoy" (1942).

The Grand Duke of Moscow and Vladimir Dmitry Ivanovich Donskoy died on May 19, 1389. He is buried in Moscow, in the Archangel Cathedral of the Kremlin. Dmitry Donskoy was canonized by the Local Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1988.