The Battle of the Nations is an international historical medieval battles world championship, first held in 2009, in Khotyn, Ukraine[1] and held in Europe, in April, every year until the cancelled 2022 tournament.

It is a full contact competition using metal weapons and a standardized list of rules.

[2][3] National teams compete in several standard events, with all being full contact - no stage reenactment battles are included.

Under the rules of BN, a national team has to consist of at least 8 and a maximum of 50 fighters.

Any representative of any of the historical medieval battles (HMB) clubs, as well as an individual fighter, provided they have gone through a selection process conventional for a country, can become a member of a national team.

National teams organize qualifying tournaments to find the best HMB fighters of a country.

[5] The tradition for this combat/competition has largely come from Russia, where enthusiasts have held previous events where full contact "battles" of large numbers of armoured combatants, are held, often in historical sites.

The heraldry, however, reflects the modern competition teams, rather than necessarily historically correct heraldic device that may have been worn by combatants in the medieval period.

Over 200 armoured men at arms take place in the competition, and in addition to melee/hand-to-hand weapons, archery is also featured.

Their captain put a team together of 9 fighters and 3 support staff who traveled from Montreal Quebec to take part in the tournament.

They also held the first friendly tournament under the HMB rules in St-Eustache in February 2012 where participants from Ontario and USA took part.

US combatants entered a team for the first time in 2012, with a number of their members coming from the Society for Creative Anachronism.

By the following year, that number increased to 22 teams which participated in the "Battle of the Nations 2013", which was held in Aigues-Mortes in southern France.

List of participants (Sorted by first-year participation): 2010 — Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland 2011 - Germany, Italy, Quebec 2012 - Austria, United States, Israel, Denmark, The Baltic States- union of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia 2013 - Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Czech Republic & Slovakia, France, Japan,[13]Luxembourg, New Zealand, Spain, United Kingdom Fighters from Portugal also attended, and fought with the Luxembourg team.

Franck de Gouil, France Category “Group Battles” 5vs5.

Marina Golovina, Russia, Fighter 3 Male Category Polearm “Duel” 1vs1.

Evgeny Baranov, Belarus Male category “Sword and Buckler” 1vs1.

Ilya Ivanov, Russia Female category “Triathlon Duel” 1vs1.

Esther Veldstra, Netherlands Male category Longsword “Duel” 1vs1.

Ilya Ivanov, Russia Female category “Triathlon Duel” 1vs1.

Robert Szatecki, Poland 3 .Maxim Slavchenko, Russia Male category “PROFIGHTS” 85-95 1vs1.

Bohumil Masnicak, UK Female category “Sword and Buckler” 1vs1.

Aleksandra Sokolsky, Ukraine Male category Longsword “Duel” 1vs1.

Ilya Ivanov, Russia Female category “Triathlon Duel” 1vs1.

[citation needed] Its participants, captains of the first national teams, came to a consensus concerning how to hold the event.

[43] It was attended by the national teams of four countries: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland.

The latter category allows participants who are not members of the national teams to fight for their countries.

[citation needed] The 2012 event was held in Warsaw, Poland, and included representatives of twelve countries.

A feature of the festival were battles of mounted knights, that were included in the program of the traditionally foot world championship in HMB for the first time.

With the increase of teams, there were no "pro rules" fights or mounted jousting in the main arena.