Talk:Siege of Kiev (1240)

Dmytro??

Who is he and why is he even mentioned with no references? 75.97.208.90 (talk) 09:54, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Gathering the primary sources

Ystoria Mongalorum Giovanni da Pian del Carpine account

I found this account, a translation of a primary souce, The Destruction of Kiev at List of conflicts in Europe during Turco-Mongol rule. It was out of place there, but perhaps it can serve a purpose here. Of course, WP:PRIMARY sources should be treated carefully, so perhaps what we should do is find secondary sources analysing this source. Perhaps a relevant quote could be included as well. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:26, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

By now I know Carpine's account - especially the second redaction - to be quite unreliable. I'll try and see what other primary sources survive, and which recent scholars have studied them critically. I suspect that the Galician-Volhynian Chronicle and the Suzdal Chronicle each have their own versions (similar to the 1169 sack of Kiev), but there may be other accounts in Polish, German etc. as well as non-chronicle Slavonic sources. NLeeuw (talk) 15:57, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Galician–Volhynian Chronicle (GVC) account

P.S.R.L. II, col. 784. has the GVC version of events. - Russia and the Golden Horde (1987), Charles J. Halperin. NLeeuw (talk) 16:21, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Perfecky 1973 has a critical English edition of the GVC. Its flaws are well-known, but it is a good place to start our examination. Perfecky p. 48: (1240) 6748 (1240). Batyj approached Kiev in great force; [he came] with a mighty host of soldiers and surrounded the city. It was encircled by the Tatars and a close siege began. Batyj pitched camp outside the city while his men besieged it. And one could not hear anything as a result of the great din [caused by] his screeching carts, countless bleating camels and neighing herds of horses. And the land of Rus' became filled with soldiers. [The Rus'ians] captured a Tatar called Tovrul' from their camp and he described the [Tatars'] vast army to the Rus'ians: [it was led by] Batyj's brothers - the strong voyevodas Urdju, Bajdar, Birjui, Kajdan, Becak, Mengu, and Kjujuk, who [had] returned home upon learning of [the Grand] Khan's death and although not related to him [became] a khan [because] he [had been] his chief voyevoda, and the bagatyr Sebedjaj, the bagatyr Burundaj, who conquered the Bulgar and Suzdal' lands, and other countless voyevodas [whose names] we did not write down here. Batyj set up his catapults [for firing] against the city in a line parallel with the Ljadskije Vorota [in Kiev], for the sloping land covered with foliage had extended up to them. The catapults hurled their missiles day and night without cessation and breached [the city's] walls. Its inhabitants climbed up on the breached walls and here one could see lance break against lance, shield scrape against shield [as the besiegers met the besieged in mortal combat. Then a barrage of] arrows eclipsed the light of the defeated [Kievans]. Dmitro was wounded. The Tatars climbed up on the ramparts and remained there that day and [through the] night. The inhabitants threw up new fortifications around the Church of the Blessed Virgin. The next day [the Tatars] attacked them and a great battle ensued. The people fled with their belongings to the top of the church to its vault, but the church walls collapsed with (6. XII. 1240) them because of their [great] weight and thus the city was taken by [enemy] troops. The wounded Dmitro was led down, but they did not kill him because of his courage [during the siege].

As Halperin mentioned, the Rus' defenders (written as "Rus'ians") captured a Tatar called Tovrul', who listed the names of the enemy officers. Halperin p. 124: The Galician-Volhynian Chronicle, for example in its account of the 1240 sack of Kiev, records the words of Tovrul, a captured informant. He identifies the captains of the Mongol host besieging the city as Urdu, Baidar, Birui, Bechak, Mengu, Kuyuk, Sebedia (Subudai) bogatyr’, Burundai bogatyr’, and of course Batu. With some slight differences in spelling and the omission of 'Kajdan', these lists are identical. Whether this really happened or is a later reconstruction is hard to say. The fact that the GVChronicler states "we did not write down [the other countless voyevodas' names] here" suggests he did have access to even more information.

More importantly, we've got a much longer narration of the battle itself than in Carpine, who wrote in very generalised and absolute terms, about put[ting] (all?) the inhabitants to death, and destroy[ing] the whole of Rus'. In the GVC, there is no massive slaughter of civilians of Kiev by the Mongols. It only mentions a large group of people (citizens and/or soldiers?) died when the church building collapsed due to their own weight, not by enemy hands. Dmitro's life was even spared. That's not to say all civilians or soldiers were spared; the GVC simply doesn't mention it. This stands in contrast to what the GVC says about subsequent cities captured by Batu: the people Kolodjazhen (?) were slaughtered; and then Batu came to Volodimer' [Volodymyr-Volynskyi] and took it by storm. He slaughtered its inhabitants without mercy as well as the inhabitants of Halych and of many other cities whose number cannot be determined. It seems unlikely Kiev was spared when so many other cities "were slaughtered without mercy". Yet, the rest of the narrative mentions Kiev several times and assumes it has quite a substantial population that could be ruled and taxed. So too with the other cities; the "slaughters" mentioned cannot have been total and shouldn't be assumed to have exterminated the entire populace of said places. The Mongols still wanted people to tax; they left plenty alive. Even Carpine suggests as much when he revisited Kiev in 1247: When the inhabitants of Kiev became aware of our arrival, they all came to meet us rejoicing (...). NLeeuw (talk) 17:26, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Suzdal'–Vladimirian Chronicle (SVC) account

expositions.nlr.ru/LaurentianCodex/ has a digitised version of the Laurentian Codex with photocopies, Old East Slavic digital transcript and modern Russian rewording. L. 164 Vol. has the entry on 1240, which I'll autotranslate from modern Russian here (with some manual corrections):

In the year 6748 (1240) a daughter was born to Yaroslav (presumably Yaroslav II of Vladimir) and was named Marya in holy baptism. In the same year, the Tatars took Kiev and plundered St. Sophia, and they took all the monasteries, icons, and honourable crosses, and all the church decorations, and they killed everyone, young and old, with the sword. This evil happened before the Nativity of the Lord on St. Nicholas Day.

It is a very brief account compared to the GVC. It has a (to me surprisingly) religious perspective on the events. Except for the alleged killing of the entire population (glaringly missing from the GVC account), every single detail is about desecrating church buildings and their sacred objects, dating the event to a day of a saint some time before Christmas. We are not told any of the military tactics or proceedings, the socio-economics, and the politics. The SVC is only interested in the religious dimension of the sack of Kiev and then returns to events in Suzdalia. Remarkable. NLeeuw (talk) 11:47, 1 March 2024 (UTC)