Moscow Mamai, controlling the western part of the Golden Horde The Battle of Kulikovo (Russian: Куликовская битва, romanized: Kulikovskaya bitva)[a] was fought between the forces of Mamai, a powerful Mongol military commander of the Golden Horde, and Russian forces led by Grand Prince Dmitry of Moscow.

After the death of Algirdas in 1377, his eldest sons Andrei of Polotsk and Dmitri of Bryansk began to struggle with their step-brother Jogaila for their legitimate right to the throne and allied with the Grand Prince of Moscow.

It is believed that the illegitimacy of the puppet khans of Mamai was by that time too obvious, and he demanded more and more money, as he lost the war for the throne of the Golden Horde.

In the same year "Mamai's tatars" defeated the army of Nizhny Novgorod with an auxiliary detachment left by Dmitry at the Battle on Pyana River.

In 1378, he sent forces led by the warlord Murza Begich to ensure Prince Dmitri's obedience, but this army suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of the Vozha River.

On September 6, the Russian army reached the Don River, where it was reorganized, taking into account the units that joined during the movement from Kolomna.

At the council, it was decided to cross the Don before the enemies could combine their forces, although this step cut off the path to retreat in case of defeat.

The poetic story "Zadonshchina", along with a figure of 253,000 fallen in the battle, gives dozens of dead princes, boyars, "Lithuanian pans" and "Novgorod posadniks" from all over North-Eastern Rus', but all this data is doubtful.

According to the Russian historian Gorskii, the list of princes and commanders (according to which one can estimate the composition of the army), cited in "The Tale of the Rout of Mamai" and the sources derived from it, is completely untrustworthy.

It can only be said that by the standards of that time, it was a very large army, and even in the 15th century the Moscow princes could not assemble an equally powerful force, which led to fantastic stories about hundreds of thousands of warriors.

[33] Estimates of the number of the Russian army by historians gradually departed from the hundreds of thousands of soldiers described in the chronicles and medieval literature.

The historian and archaeologist, medieval warfare expert Kirpchinikov, in the book of 1966 argues that the maximum strength of the army of six regiments on Kulikovo Field could not exceed 36,000.

The Ambush regiment under the command of Vladimir the Bold and Dmitry Bobrok (brother-in-law of the Grand Prince) was hidden behind the line of Russian troops in an oak grove.

[b] The Grand Prince himself went to the front lines, leaving his trusted boyar Mikhail Brenok as the head of the Large Regiment under the great banner.

According to one of the later sources, the Tatars met the first blow of the Russian cavalry on foot, exposing the spears in two rows, which gave rise to stories about the "hired Genovese infantry."

Russian sources, even the earliest ones, unanimously tell us that after the clash of the main forces, a cruel melee began, which lasted a long time and in which the "innumerable multitude of people" perished on both sides.

[48] The medieval German historian Albert Krantz describe this battle in his book Vandalia: "both of these people do not fight to stand in large detachments, but in their usual way they rush to throw missiles, strike and then retreat backwards".

An expert on medieval warfare, Kirpichnikov assumed that the armies on the Kulikovo field fought by several separate consolidated units, that tried to keep the battle order.

[55] No sources from the Tatar side are available; if they had been written, they were probably destroyed a few years later when Timur burnt down the archives of the Golden Horde in Sarai.

[59] For example, the "Narration" mistakenly claimed that Cyprian, Metropolitan of Kiev in 1380 resided in Moscow rather than Kyiv,[59] that Algirdas (died 1377) was still grand duke of Lithuania in 1380,[59] and that Dmitry Donskoy had a meeting with Sergius of Radonezh, which almost certainly did not happen.

[1] According to Ostrowski (1998, 2000), the German chronicles were generally earlier and more accurate than the Kulikovo cycle sources, and showed that the battle did take place on the Don River, but was not as significant as claimed.

[1] The Battle of Kulikovo gave rise to an unprecedentedly large stratum of medieval Rus' literature; no other historical event has received such wide coverage.

[62] The most important works are:[63] While the Zadonshchina is based on the literary model of The Tale of Igor's Campaign (also known as Lay of the Host of Igor’),[62][69] the latter had elements of Slavic paganism, which in the Zadonshchina narrative were replaced by the idea that the Rus' soldiers fought "for the Rus’ Land and the Christian faith";[69] yet the Christian elements in it pale in comparison to its military and chivalric ethos.

The French painter Adolphe Yvon, later known for his works on the Napoleonic Wars, in 1850 wrote the monumental painting "The Battle of the Kulikovo Field" by order of Nicholas I.

[70] A minor planet, 2869 Nepryadva, discovered in 1980 by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh, was named in honour of the Russian victory over the Tataro-Mongols.

Studies of old soils in the 20th century showed that the left bank of Nepryadva near its influx in the Don was covered with dense forests, while on the right there was a wooded steppe with vast openings.

Trying to prove that 400,000 people were involved in the battle on both sides, he assumed that the real battlefield was not at the mouth, but at the source of Nepryadva since the Old Russian word ust'e had also designated the place where the river flows from the lake.

In 1825, it was reported by a famous Russian adventurer that the "precious things" from the field, once numerous, were "scattered across Russia" and formed private collections, such as those of Nechayev, Countess Bobrinskaya and other noble persons.

After visiting the field and the village of Monastyrschina, Tikhomirov noted that "swords, axes, arrows, spears, crosses, coins and other similar things" that were of value were frequently found there and owned by private persons.

Numerous fragments of weapons, crosses and armour were also noted by the famous 19th-century Tula historian Ivan Afremov [ru], who suggested building a museum for these artefacts.