The Battle of the Pyana, the Pyana Slaughter, the Popyane Battle, the Slaughter on the Pyana River was a battle between a Horde army led by Prince Arab Shah Muzaffar and a united Russian army led by Prince Ivan Dmitrievich on August 2, 1377, on the banks of the Nizhny Novgorod river Pyana.

In the battle, the Russian army, caught by surprise, was utterly routed. This allowed Arab Shah to plunder the Nizhny Novgorod Principality and take Ryazan.

The Tale of the Slaughter on the Pyana River

The chronicle account of the slaughter on the Pyana River relates to events of the late 14th century, when the military resistance of the Grand Principality of Moscow to the Horde was growing stronger. Moscow was at that time becoming the head of the other principalities of northeastern Rus, and the Grand Prince of Moscow led the struggle of the Russian principalities against the Golden Horde. This clash with Horde forces ended in the defeat of the Russian detachments: the blame lay with the disorganization of the Russian commanders and the carelessness of the Russian soldiers. The chronicle tale of the battle on the Pyana is accusatory in character — the author exclaims with bitter sarcasm, playing on the river's name: "Truly — drunk beyond the Pyana!" (Pyana means "drunk" in Russian.)

The text of the "Tale..." is published according to the copy in the Simeon Chronicle of the first half of the 16th century — BAN, 16.8.25. Individual corrections of erroneous spellings have been made according to the Rogozhsky Chronicler (RGB, fond 247 — the collection of the Rogozhskoe Cemetery, no. 253).


The site of the battle lies in the south of the present-day Nizhny Novgorod Region, near the border with Mordovia; the Pyana River itself has a characteristic loop shape.[1]

Contemporaries described him as a man small in body but a skilled and fierce warrior; Mamai gave him an army and in the spring of 1377 sent him against the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod Principality.[2]

After the defeat on the Pyana, Prince Dmitry Konstantinovich of Nizhny Novgorod gathered a new force and undertook a punitive campaign against the Mordvin princes who had led the Tatars to the Russian army: the Suzdal force under Boris Konstantinovich of Gorodets and Semyon Dmitrievich, together with the Moscow commander Fyodor Andreevich Sviblo, devastated the Mordvin territories in winter, burned villages and winter dwellings, took a large number of captives, and some of the captured Mordvins were executed in Nizhny Novgorod.[2]

« Of the slaughter on the Pyana. In the year 6885. <...> In that same year a certain tsarevich named Arapsha fled from the Blue Horde across the Volga, and wished to march with an army against Novgorod the Lower. Prince Dmitry Konstantinovich[3] sent word to his son-in-law, Grand Prince Dmitry Ivanovich. And Grand Prince Dmitry, having gathered many warriors, came with his army to Novgorod the Lower in heavy force.

But there was no news of Tsarevich Arapsha, and he returned to Moscow. And he sent his voivodes against them, and with them the Vladimir, Pereyaslavl, Yuryev, Murom, and Yaroslavl levies. And Prince Dmitry of Suzdal sent his son, Prince Ivan, and Prince Semyon Mikhailovich, and with them voivodes and many warriors.

And the army was very great, and they went beyond the river Pyana, and word came to them that Tsarevich Arapsha was on the Volchya Vody. But they grew careless and rode in negligence, loading their armor onto their carts,[7] and others into sacks, and some had spearheads[8] not yet fitted onto their shafts, and shields and lances were not made ready. They rode with their clothes slipped off their shoulders and their buttonholes unfastened, as if parboiled, for it was hot, since the time was sultry. And wherever they came upon mead or beer in the farmsteads,[9] they drank without measure until drunk and rode drunk. Truly — beyond the Pyana, drunk! And their elders, or their princes, or their chief boyars, grandees, or voivodes, they all rode off to hunt, making merry, imagining themselves as if at home.

And at that time the pagan Mordvin princes secretly led a Tatar army from Mamai's Horde against our princes. But the princes did not know, and no word of it reached them. And they came as far as the Shipara, and at once the pagans swiftly divided into five regiments, and suddenly, unannounced, struck our army from the rear, beating and stabbing and cutting them down without warning. Ours had no time to do anything at all, and fled to the river Pyana, and the Tatars after them, slaying.

And there they killed Prince Semyon Mikhailovich and a multitude of boyars. And Prince Ivan Dmitreevich, fleeing in panic to the river Pyana, pursued without respite, threw himself on his horse into the river and drowned there, and with him drowned in the river a multitude of boyars and servants and people beyond number. This calamity came to pass in the month of August, on the 2nd day, on the commemoration of the holy martyr Stephen, on a Sunday, at the sixth hour after noon.

And the Tatars, having overcome the Christians, stood upon the bones, left all the captives and plunder there, and themselves went swiftly, without warning, to Novgorod the Lower. But Prince Dmitry Konstantinovich had no strength to stand against them in battle, and fled to Suzdal. And the townspeople of Novgorod scattered in boats along the Volga toward Gorodets.

And the Tatars came to Novgorod the Lower in the month of August, on the 5th day, on a Wednesday, on the commemoration of the holy martyr Eusignius, on the eve of the Feast of the Savior, and slew the remaining townspeople, and burned the whole town, and the churches and monasteries, and 32 churches in the town burned down. And the pagans, those foreigners, departed from the town on Friday, ravaging the districts of Novgorod and burning villages, and cut down a multitude of people, and led off women and children and maidens into captivity without number.

In that same year the aforementioned Tsarevich Arapsha came and plundered the Zasurye and burned it with fire as well.

In that same month of August Prince Vasily Dmitreevich came from Suzdal to Novgorod the Lower, and sent and ordered his brother, Prince Ivan, to be drawn out of the river, out of the Pyana. And they brought him to Novgorod, and wept over him, and laid him in the stone church of the Holy Savior, in the porch, on the right side, in the week after the Dormition, on that same day of the month of August, the 23rd.
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Interesting Facts

  • Three years after the Ryurikids' major defeat on the Pyana (1377), as a result of which they lost Nizhny Novgorod and Ryazan, news arrived of their victory in the Battle of Kulikovo (1380).
  • The Battle of Kulikovo did not bring an end to the Mongol-Tatar yoke, which continued for another 100 years, until the "Great Stand on the Ugra River".
  • Archaeological studies of the presumed site of the Battle of Kulikovo have found no confirmation that a major battle took place.

See also

Sources

  1. obrazovaka.ru — Two battles took place on the Pyana River: in 1367 and 1377. In the first, the Nizhny Novgorod-Suzdal princes Dmitry… (archive)
  2. rushist.com — Battle on the Pyana River (1377) — Russian Historical Library (archive)