The capture of Mstislavl is an episode of the initial stage of the Russo-Polish war of 1654-1667 . The army of Prince Alexei Nikitich Trubetskoy took possession of Mstislavl - a large economic and administrative center of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , the main city of Mstislavl Voivodeship [3] . The city remained under the control of the Russian administration until the fall of 1658, when the rebel Zaporozhye Cossacks of Ivan Vygovsky occupied Mstislavl with the support of some citizens, and in the spring of 1659, after the siege, the city was again occupied by Russian troops. In 1661, Mstislavl returned to the control of the Commonwealth.
| The capture of Mstislavl | |||
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| Main conflict: Russian-Polish war 1654-1667 | |||
 "The capture of the castle by the Muscovites." Frescoes of the Ascension Carmelite Church in Mstislavl | |||
| date | July 12 ( 22 ), 1654 | ||
| A place | Mstislavl , now the Mogilev region | ||
| Total | The victory of the Russian troops | ||
| Opponents | |||
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| Commanders | |||
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| Forces of the parties | |||
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Content
Mstislavl Fortress
The inequality of forces at the first stage of the hostilities of the campaign of 1654 could be compensated by the troops of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by the staunch defense of numerous fortresses. The Voivodship Center had a wooden castle with 10 towers and a tree-earthen rampart with wooden gate towers. The fortress was further strengthened by deep moats, many of which were of natural origin [4] .
Event
The sovereign campaign of 1654 was a success thanks to the seized initiative in hostilities and a wide front in the deployment of strong flanking army groups Trubetskoy and Sheremetev.
Warfare
The siege of Mstislavl took place in parallel with the siege of Smolensk , in which the bulk of the Russian troops participated. In order to prevent the Lithuanian troops from approaching Smolensk, a detachment under the command of Jacob Cherkassky was sent to meet the army of the hetman of the full Lithuanian Janusz Radziwill , which forced Radziwill to retreat. At the same time, from the southeast from Bryansk came the army of Trubetskoy, who without a fight took Roslavl and went to Mstislavl.
Janusz Radziwill sent a station wagon to Mstislavskie Voivodeship, which forbade its residents to evade the protection of their castle under the fear of "taking property, depriving of honor and expulsion from estates . " After that, “all city and zemstvo officials” , as well as the gentry and the inhabitants of the voivodship on the assembled seymic, firmly decided to defend the Mstislavsky castle from the Russian troops [5] . This was a rather uncharacteristic phenomenon for the 1654 campaign, since most of the cities in the eastern part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania surrendered to the tsarist troops without a fight. The mass transition of the population to the side of the king was more a rule than an exception [1] [6] . At the first stage of the war, the peasant and petty bourgeois population of the borderland, accustomed to changing the state of their lands, often welcomed the Russian troops [1] , and the gentry usually hoped to bargain for themselves before capitulation favorable conditions, since the tsarist government needed its support [6] . According to the Polish historian Konrad Bobyatinsky, the reason for switching to the side of Alexei Mikhailovich was not the class struggle, but the military situation and the inability of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to protect the population and only partially religious factor [1] .
A large number of people flocked to the castle, not only from the Mstislavl Voivodeship, but also the gentry from the Smolensk Voivodeship [7] , and all the warehouses of the castle were overflowed with the property of wealthy inhabitants of the Voivodeship. However, as historian Vladimir Krasnyansky noted, it was mainly the Polish population and the gentry. The indigenous "Russian population of Mstislavl was happy to expect the Moscow troops" , seeing them as their liberators. At the same time, part of the gentry joined the Russian troops, which, according to a number of eyewitnesses, also took part in the storming of the castle [5] .
Siege and Assault
On July 8 (18), the Russian army (15,000 [1] or 18,200 people [2] ) with armatures (guns) and various types of ammunition approached Mstislavl. Jan Stankevich, counting on the ambulance of the ON army, which at that time was under Orsha, categorically refused to open the gate [1] . Then Trubetskoy, having encircled the city with a dense ring, proceeded to its siege. Russian troops quickly knocked out the besieged from the city fortifications, however, they could not immediately take the castle. For four days they bombarded the castle with cannons, causing significant damage to its fortifications and great damage to the people who defended it. Also, the Russian army repeatedly made attempts to take the castle by attack. The besieged, in turn, made desperate sorties against the enemy [5] [2] .
More than three thousandth militia led by the order officer Nikolai Posokhovsky came to the aid of the besieged, but at the approaches to Mstislavl it was defeated by the Russians and 500 people were taken prisoner [6] [8] .
Finally, at dawn on July 12 (22), after a massive artillery bombardment, the Russian troops stormed and captured the castle [5] . During the assault, many defenders of the castle were killed. A part was captured and taken to Russia [Comm. 1] , and part was immediately released. The latter received the nickname "nonsense" and swore allegiance to the Russian Tsar [Comm. 2] . Yan Stankevich and most of the gentry who defended the castle were taken prisoner [1] .
Due to the stubborn resistance of the defenders of the Mstislavsky castle, Trubetskoy was not able, according to the royal decree, to guarantee the safety of “houses and property from military ruin” , as was the case with other cities and villages [9] . Due to the fire that occurred during the storm, the wooden castle burned out. In addition to the castle, a parkan (prison) and a city were also burnt out [10] . All property hidden in the castle burned or was looted, and also volost privileges (letters) for various privileges and possessions of the gentry were destroyed [5] [6] .
Value
The capture of Mstislavl at the beginning of hostilities in the southwestern direction allowed the Tsar’s campaign to continue in 1654 - one of the most successful campaigns in the history of the wars of the Russian state against Poland and Lithuania. Thanks to the victory in the battle, Russian troops were able to enter the Dnieper in the Mogilev - Orsha area, which threatened the numerous towns located on the left side of the Dnieper. The crossing of the Dnieper opened up the possibility of reaching Berezina in the Borisov region and threatening the enemy in Minsk [3] .
After this, the castle, presumably, was repeatedly restored, but it no longer had its former significance [10] .
Losses
In the family papers of Prince Fyodor Volkonsky it is said that Prince Alexei Trubetskoy “... took the city of Mstislavl and burned it and burned it, and beat more than fifteen thousand [people] in it” [11] [2] [12] [13] . According to the historian Andrei Metelsky, a large number of deaths during the defense of the city suggests that a significant number of the population from all over the Mstislavl voivodship took refuge in Mstislavl [13] .
According to Vasily Meleshko , telling about the assault on Mstislavl to Bogdan Khmelnitsky , Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich wrote in his letter that the city “... were taken and the gentry, Poles and Lithuania, and other servants and Xenzians and Jesuits and their other ranks were beaten more than ten thousand people” [ 8] .
In historiography, the capture of Mstislavl is sometimes called the "pipe slaughter" [12] . It is alleged that as a result, almost the entire population of the city died [12] [15] [2] . Several decades after the war, the assault of the castle by the Russian army was depicted on the walls of the church in Mstislavl, as well as Russian soldiers who chopped off the heads of Catholic priests who humbly turned their eyes to the sky.
The Soviet historian Lavrenty Abetsedarsky drew attention to a number of circumstances that contradict the version of the massacre in Mstislavl [6] :
- The policy of the Moscow government to prevent the destruction of people [16] who are not related to military service.
- Preservation of Mstislavl Magdeburg Law .
- The royal letter of 1655 to the city bummister Andrei Chechet, affirming free trade for Mstislavites and disgrace for Russian military men in case of offense by the Mstislavtsi, up to the death penalty.
- Inconsistency of the gentry's narrative about the defense of the castle to the last defender with other documents, according to which the gentry of Mstislavl eventually surrendered themselves to Trubetskoy.
- Reports that a lot of people were captured by Trubetskoy’s army in the Mstislav castle, including the commander of the castle’s defense and the city governor Jan Stankevich.
- Messages about the oath of many Mstislavl gentry to the king.
Abecedarsky believed that the “Trubetskoy massacre” was a legend that emerged only a few years after the events of 1654, when the local gentry, after the re-conquest of Mstislavl by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, applied for confirmation of their possessions [6] . Trying to justify herself in the eyes of the authorities for the surrender of the Mstislavsky castle, the gentry explained to them that the original documents were selected and destroyed by Russian military men, who committed incredible atrocities and devastation in the city.
Comments
- ↑ Among the prisoners taken out from Mstislavl to Russia was the famous master of tiles Stepan Polubes .
- ↑ At least, for the few representatives of the Polish gentry in Mstislavl, the nickname "unsuccessful" remained until the beginning of the 20th century [5]
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Babyatynsky K. Adnosiny zhykharў ON and the masked troops ў 1654―1655 // Belarus gistarychny aglad. - 2007. - Pp. 1-2.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 Weaver M., Coward A. A. Starazhytny Mstsіsla . - Mensk: Polymya, 1992.S. 22.
- ↑ 1 2 Maltsev A.N. Russia and Belarus in the middle of the XVII century. - M., 1974. - S. 45
- ↑ Tkachev M.A. Castles of Belarus. - Mn., 1977.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 Krasnyansky V. G. City of Mstislavl: Its Present and Past // Notes of the North-West Department of the Russian Geographical Society: in 4 books .. - Vilna: Type. I. Zavadsky , 1912. - T. 3. - P. 150―152.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 Abecedarsky L.S. Belarus and Russia. Essays on Russian-Belarusian relations in the second half of the 16th – 17th centuries Minsk, 1978. P. 150-153
- ↑ Historical and legal materials extracted from the assembly books of the provinces of Vitebsk and Mogilev : in 32 volumes. - Vitebsk: Tipo-lithog. G. A. Malkin , 1894. - T. 25: ... from the books of the Mstislavl Grodsky and Zemsky courts for 1664 . - S. 438.
- ↑ 1 2 Mialeshka V.I. Mstіslava abarona // Vyalikae of the Principality of Lithuania. Enceclapedia at 3 t . - Mn. : BelEn , 2005. - T. 2: Kadetsky Corps - Yatskevich. - S. 320 .-- 788 p. - ISBN 985-11-0378-0 .
- ↑ Lobin A.N. Unknown War of 1654-1667 // Skepticism : Journal of Education. - 2007.
- ↑ 1 2 Alekseev L.V. Mstislavl detinet XII-XIV centuries. // Russian archeology. 1995. No. 3. P. 60–76; S. 61, 75.
- ↑ Acts collected in libraries and archives of the Russian Empire . - SPb. : Type. II Sep. own E.I.V. Chancellery, 1836. - T. 4: 1645-1700. - S. 128.
- ↑ 1 2 3 Grytskevich A.P. Vayna Rasіі z Rechchu Paspalіtai 1654—67 // Vyalikai of the Principality of Lithuania: Etsiklapedyya : at 2 tamakhs. - 2nd ed. - Minsk, 2007. - T. 1: AK. - S. 373. - ISBN 978-985-11-0393-1 .
- ↑ 1 2 Myatzelsky A. A. Mstsyslaske principalities and sculptures ая ХІІ — ХVІІІ art. - Minsk: Belarusian Navuka, 2010 .-- 664 p.
- ↑ Litwa i Ruś: Miesięcznik poświęcony kulturze, dziejom, krajoznawstwu i ludoznawstwu / Red. F. Rawita-Gawroński ,JK Obst . - Wilno: Druk. wydaw. J. Zawadzkiego , 1912.- T. 2, Z. 1. - S. 32.
- ↑ Kіturka І. Gistoryya Belarusі: dapam. - Goradnya: GrDU, 2006.S. 70.
- ↑ Royal decree: " Belarusians of the Orthodox Christian faith who will not be taught to fight, not to be taken to pieces and not ruined - Kurbatov OA Gosudarev Smolensky campaign of 1654 //" Sedmitsa ". - 2004