There are events lost and lost in history, others - on the contrary, bright and significant, the memory of which does not fade from year to year, and the importance is not lost, no matter how many people like it. The author of Zadonshchina, a literary work written shortly after the events on Kulikovo Field, writes that the glory of this victory swept through the world to Constantinople, and praise came to the princes from all sides for having defeated the Tatar army. How important is it for every Russian to know and be sure when the Kulikovo battle was, what is its meaning and significance.
Feudal fragmentation weakened the country's defense, which was the main reason for the establishment of the Tatar-Mongol yoke in Russia in 1237-1240. When there was the Kulikovo battle, the fragmentation was not completely over, but the centripetal tendencies were already there. Moscow was rising more and more, acting as the spiritual and political center of the northeastern principalities. In the Golden Horde, on the contrary, a period of struggle for power came. Nevertheless, the temp Mamai planned a new destructive campaign against Russia. Upon learning of this, the Moscow prince Dmitry Ivanovich hastily organizes the defense, and then plans to meet the Mongol army in order to avoid the defeat of their lands. Having sent letters to Russian princes, Dmitry Donskoy (this nickname he will receive after the victory) has appointed a meeting in Kolomna. Almost all the princes of North-Eastern Russia sent their regiments. The combined army, consisting, approximately, of 50-60 thousand warriors, came out to meet the enemy. Mamai, unprepared for this turn of events, was caught unawares.
Two armies met on the banks of the Don, where the tributary of Nepryadva flows into it, on the Kulikovo field. Mamaevo horde exceeded the Russian army in number, and he was confident of victory. But on September 8, 1380, when the Battle of Kulikovo was, Russian weapons won the first, in such power and scope, victory over the Mongol-Tatars. Throughout the centuries, the people's memory preserved the image of the Russian hero, the monk Alexander Peresvet, who started the battle that day with the Tatar warrior Chelubey and died on the battlefield. Dmitry Ivanovich did not immediately throw all the troops into the battle, leaving an ambush regiment near the oak forest. The reserve led by Dmitry Volynsky, who entered the battle in time, in effect, decided the outcome of the battle. The tired Tatar warriors, already feeling victory, could not withstand the onslaught of new Russian forces and fled. On the battlefield, it remains to lie about half of the army of Dmitry Ivanovich.
Unfortunately, at the time of the Battle of Kulikovo, the Mongol-Tatar yoke did not end, the Russian principalities were forced after 1382 to renew the payment of the tribute to the Horde because of the crushing campaign of the Khan Tokhtamish, but this does not detract from the significance of the military feat on the Kulikovo field. The joint struggle rallied the Russian people, contributed to the unification of the northeastern principalities led by Moscow, gave hope for an early release.
In recent decades, publications on the falsification of history and revision towards "historical truth" of various events, including the Kulikovo battle, are gaining popularity. And the battle was, so-so, an insignificant event, and it was not on the Don, but, it turns out, in Moscow, and Mamai is a victim of the aggressiveness of the Moscow prince, and similar clarifications. A number of historians have entered into polemics with such publicists, refuting their arguments with irrefutable facts.
One can agree that the end of the 14th century is a matter of days gone by, many things have become legendary in the narrative, and this is natural. But the main phenomenon remained unchanged, the facts of place and time, of historical significance can not be altered. And pseudo-historians, depriving the Russian state of heroes and victory in the pursuit of sensation, what are their goals? Whatever it was, this results in undermining the historical basis necessary for building a strong state.