Battle of Toropets (1580)

By the middle of the 16th century, the city of Toropets had impressive fortifications of that time - high wooden walls with multi-tiered towers around the perimeter, surrounded by a moat and a steep earthen rampart.

Toropets was included in the Russian state after the war with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1500-1503 . The city has become one of the most important border fortress of the Russian state. Lithuanian troops repeatedly tried to occupy Toropets .

During the siege of the Great Bow, Tsar Ivan the Terrible simultaneously sent governor Prince Vasily Dmitrievich Khilkov sharp letters in which he expressed his dissatisfaction with his slowness, demanded more active and decisive action from the governor and sent a large detachment under the command of the duma nobleman Dementy Cheremisinov to help him.

A week after the fall of Velikiye Luki , September 20, 1580 , the Polish-Lithuanian army (2,500 men), under the command of the governor of Bratslavsky, Prince Janusz Zbarazhsky , consisting of Polish, Hungarian and German horse regiments, broke the regiments of the governor of Prince Vasily Dmitrievich Khilkov (4 thousand people) near Toropets. Initially, the Russians were successful: they managed to lure the enemy onto a damaged bridge and it collapsed. However, later the Russians were defeated by the attack of the Polish heavy cavalry under the command of Nikolai Yazlovetsky, Stanislav Stadnitsky , Georg Fahrensbach , Andrzej and Nikolai Zebrzydowski. The royal letters fell into the hands of the hetman Ian Zamoysky, and governors Grigory Nashchokin and Dementy Cheremisinov were captured.

The Russians lost 300 people in this battle, another 24 people were captured. Only about 40 people escaped from the city and fled.

• Bodrikhin N. G. “400 battles of Russia”, from “Eksmo”, Moscow, 2009 ISBN 978-5-699-33180-2 , art. 358