1608-1610 “Defense of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra by monks from the Poles.”Original drawing by Mikhail Petrovich Klodt (Klodt von Jurgensburg) (1835-1914), engraver Baranovsky. From the collection of illustrations from the Niva magazine.
On September 23, 1608, Polish detachments of Sapieha and Lisovsky appeared at the walls of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. On September 29, they sent a letter to the Lavra demanding the surrender of the stronghold. However, the monks, archers and peasants from the devastated villages had already managed to prepare for defense. No one even thought about surrendering the Orthodox shrine, although there were exactly ten times fewer defenders - two and a half thousand. The Russians responded to the Polish ultimatum: “Know, proud leaders Sapega and Lisovsky, that even a ten-year-old boy will laugh at you, for it is of no use to a person to love darkness more than light, to exchange truth for lies, freedom for slavery.”
The garrison of the Lavra consisted of monks and a detachment of archers sent to help by Vasily Shuisky. There were 3,000 defenders in total. The defense was led by siege commanders - Prince Dolgoruky and boyar Golokhvostov.
Nine Polish batteries destroyed the fortress for 6 weeks without noticeable success. Unsuccessful assaults alternated with forays of the besieged. Sapieha's engineers began to dig a mine gallery. Having learned from a defector that the Poles were going to equip a tunnel with a mine, Dolgoruky ordered the opening of an old secret passage, protected by three doors, and made a sortie. The Russians burst into the mine gallery, where the charges had already been laid, and detonated them. Since the Poles did not have time to clog up the gallery by this time, the explosion caused destruction on the Polish side.
Shelling and attacks replaced each other, the number of defenders dwindled. Food ran out, there was a shortage of water, people suffered from wounds and cold, as wood supplies were running out. The situation was becoming hopeless.
Every day the besieged prayed to the Most Holy Trinity, Archangel Michael, the Mother of God and the founder of the Lavra, Sergius of Radonezh. St. Sergius himself repeatedly appeared to the defenders, walked around the monastery and sprinkled it with holy water, and with God’s help, the defenders of the stronghold of Orthodoxy more and more often succeeded in daring forays, after which the Lavra was replenished with livestock, firewood, water, flour, and also... captive Poles. From time to time, small Russian detachments made their way through the Polish blockade to help the besieged. But still the situation remained formidable: the winter of 1609-1610 claimed the lives of many defenders. People died in battle on the fortress walls, died from wounds and diseases. As a menacing harbinger of even greater troubles, scurvy began in the fortress laurel. But the Poles’ strength was running out.
In January 1610, the Poles retreated after a fruitless fifteen-month siege.
Here is the full chronology of events:
September 22 – the battle of the village of Rakhmantsy and the defeat of I.I.’s detachment by Polish and Lithuanian troops. Shuisky, sent in pursuit of Sapega, in order to prevent him from reaching the Trinity-Sergius Monastery.
September 23, the conception of the prophet John the Baptist, - the arrival of the troops of Hetman Peter Sapieha and Alexander Lisovsky to the Trinity Monastery along the Moscow road.
September 29 – Sapieha sent a letter to the Trinity Monastery demanding surrender.
September 30 – decisive refusal by the defenders of the monastery.
October 3 – the beginning of shelling of the monastery from guns.
October 6 - the enemies began to dig an approach ditch to the Red Gate of the monastery.
October 12 - the enemies began to undermine the Pyatnitskaya Tower.
October 13 - a new shelling of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery and the 1st great attack on the walls of the monastery on the night of October 13-14.
October 19 – battle with the Lithuanians in the cabbage garden and near the Lithuanian tours.
October 23 - the appearance of St. Sergius to the sexton Irinarch with a warning about the imminent attack of enemies on the beer yard and the unsuccessful attack of enemies on the beer yard on the night from Sunday to Monday.
On October 26, in memory of Saint Demetrius of Thessalonica, Archimandrite Joasaph led a religious procession along the walls of the monastery, the flight of Lithuanian people from the walls of the monastery to their camps.
The end of October - a sortie from the monastery and the capture of Captain Brushevsky, who reported about the undermining of the monastery fortress.
November 1, in memory of Cosmas and Damian, was an unsuccessful attack by the defenders of the monastery. According to Tyumentsev, this event occurred on November 10.
November 2 – attack on the walls of the monastery on the night of November 3.
Appearance of St. Sergius to Archimandrite Joasaph.
November, on the night from Saturday to Sunday, the appearance of the Monks Sergius and Nikon to the besiegers of the monastery.
It is likely that St. Sergius appeared to both Archimandrite Joasaph and his enemies on the same night, or that this appearance occurred on October 23.
November 4 - capture of a prisoner who showed the direction of the tunnel and the date for blowing up the Pyatnitskaya Tower.
November 8, the feast of the Council of the Archangel Michael, two cannonballs hit the Trinity Cathedral: one pierced the image of the Archangel Michael, the other - the image of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. Appearance of Archangel Michael to Archimandrite Joasaph. Destruction of the Lithuanian arquebus "Treschera".
November 9, Wednesday, in memory of the holy martyrs Onesiphorus and Porfiry - a sortie from the Trinity Monastery and the capture of several enemy guns. According to Abraham Palitsyn, on this day the tunnel under the Pyatnitskaya Tower was destroyed.
November 11 – attack and destruction of the Lithuanian mine by Shilov and Slota.
November 17 – the beginning of scurvy in the monastery. According to Kostomarov, on this day there was an unsuccessful foray for firewood and the enemies, pursuing the Trinity people, almost captured the Kalichya Gate.
December 28 – the defenders of the monastery recaptured cattle and hay from the Poles.
December 21, 25, 28 - according to the secretaries of Jan Sapieha, in the battles on these days, the defenders of the monastery lost 325 people killed and captured.
Tsar Vasily Shuisky granted the Trinity-Sergius Monastery land on the outskirts of Moscow, behind Zemlyanoy Gorod, along the banks of the Neglinnaya River (later Trinity Sloboda and Trinity Sukharevskoye Metochion).
January 13 - the defeat of the outpost of Pan Suma by the defenders of the monastery.
January 31 - defeat of the Tushins at their watering hole.
February 15 - Ataman Ostankov’s detachment of 66 Cossacks and 20 monastery servants with a supply of gunpowder, sent by Tsar Vasily Shuisky to help the Trinity prisoners at the insistence of Abraham Palitsyn, made their way into the monastery.
March – a letter from nun Olga (Ksenia Godunova) from a besieged monastery.
May 9 – consecration of the chapel in the name of St. Nicholas in the Assumption Cathedral by Archimandrite Joasaph. Relief of scurvy.
May 27 – 2nd great attack on the walls of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery.
June 28 – 3rd great attack on the walls of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery. According to Abraham Palitsyn - July 31.
July 31 – night attack on the walls of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery.
August 12 – departure of the main forces of Sapieha and Lisovsky from near the Trinity-Sergius Monastery to meet the troops of Skopin-Shuisky.
On August 15, on the feast of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, cattle were stolen from the Sapezhin camp to the monastery.
September 3 – return of Sapieha and Lisovsky to the Trinity - Sergius Monastery.
Late September–early October – liberation of Pereslavl from Tushino by the army of Semyon Golovin and Grigory Valuev.
October 18 – liberation of Alexandrova Sloboda.
October 19 – David Zherebtsov’s detachment of 600 people arrived at the monastery from Pereslavl on the orders of Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky.
October 28 – the battle for Aleksandrova Sloboda between the troops of Skopin-Shuisky and Sapieha.
The defeat of Sapieha and his flight to the camp near the Trinity Monastery.
January 4 – Grigory Valuev’s detachment of 500 people arrived at the monastery from Alexandrova Sloboda.
January 5 – battle of the monastery defenders with Sapega and Lisovsky.
January 12 – the flight of Sapieha and Lisovsky from the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, the end of the siege.
“Historical illustration”
Runiverse.
TRINITY SIEGE 1608-1610, attempted capture on September 23. 1608-1612 Jan. 1610 during the Polish and Swedish intervention in Russia in the 17th century. Polish-Lithuanian troops of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery (now in the city of Zagorsk), thwarted by the heroic resistance of the Russians. garrison. The Trinity-Sergius Monastery (71 km north of Moscow) was a strong fortress covering the road to Moscow from the north. It had a high stone wall with 9 towers and numerous loopholes, which housed up to 90 cannons. The fortress garrison numbered approx. 2200-2400 people (nobles, archers, armed monks and residents of Posad and surrounding villages). The defense of the fortress was led by governors G.B. Dolgorukov-Roshcha and A.I. Golokhvastov. To besiege the monastery, up to 15 thousand (according to other sources, 30 thousand) people were sent from the Tushino camp, where the intervention troops were stationed. and St. 60 guns under the command of governors J. Sapieha and A. Lisovsky. Art. shelling of the fortress and underground work began in October 1608. During the 16 months of the siege, the defenders of the fortress repulsed 6 general assaults of the interventionists, the most significant of which were 3 assaults in October-November 1608. The besieged, conducting an active defense, not only successfully repelled them, but also made frequent forays themselves, inflicting great damage on the enemy. 9 Nov In 1608, the peasants of Shipov and Sloba, at the cost of their lives, blew up a tunnel made by the enemy under the monastery tower and destroyed the enemy batteries on Krasnaya Gora. From the end of November 1608 to May 1609 there were no active hostilities. During this period, due to scurvy and other diseases, the monastery garrison was reduced by more than 3 times. Despite this, in the summer of 1609 the defenders successfully repelled enemy assaults. Oct 19 1609 D. Zherebtsov’s detachment (up to 900 people) broke into the fortress, and on January 4. 1610 - G. Valuev’s detachment (500 people). The approach of M.V.'s army Skopin-Shuisky, which had already defeated the interventionists at Kalyazin and Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda, forced the Polish. troops (about 6 thousand) lift the siege of the fortress and flee to the city of Dmitrov. That. had great strategic and tactical significance: it pinned down significant forces of the interventionists, creating favorable conditions for the development of the national liberation movement in the north of the country and in the Volga region, as well as for the formation of Skopin-Shuisky’s army. As a result, heroic actions of the garrison of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery communication between Moscow and the north-east. and north-west areas of the country were not completely interrupted.
P. A. Ivankov.
Materials from the Soviet Military Encyclopedia in 8 volumes, volume 8 were used.
Trinity-Sergius Monastery ( Civil War, or Time of Troubles, 1604-1613). Russian defense of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery September 23, 1608 - January 12, 1610. The monastery was besieged by Tushin troops under the command of Hetman J. Sapieha and Colonel A. Lisovsky (up to 30 thousand people). The Trinity-Sergius Lavra, which was both a concentration of church wealth and an important strategic point, was defended by archers, monks and local peasants (2.4 thousand people) under the command of governor G.B. Dolgorukov and A. Golokhvastov.
On October 3, shelling of the monastery began. However, he did not cause significant harm to either the fortress or its defenders. The Tushins did not have siege artillery. They used small and medium caliber guns, which were effective for field battles, but not against strong stone walls. On the night of October 14, the “Tushinites” confidently and with music moved to storm the Trinity-Sergius Monastery. It didn't come to a battle on the walls. The attackers were driven away from the fortress by well-aimed fire from cannons and arquebuses. A week later, Sapega and Lisovsky repeated the attack. It also ended in complete failure.
Then the besiegers began mining the fortress. The defenders of the monastery learned about this from captured prisoners and Cossack defectors. On November 11, during another foray, the besieged managed to find the tunnel hole. After a hand-to-hand fight, the “Tushins” were driven away from the mine, and the local peasants Shilov and Slota, who were defending the monastery, went down there. They lit gunpowder and blew up the tunnel, dying in the explosion.
After this, Sapega and Lisovsky no longer resumed active operations, but decided to defeat the fortress with a winter blockade. However, having stretched their army along the entire perimeter of the walls (1250 m), the besiegers were unable to envelop it in a tight ring and reliably cut off the defenders of the monastery from outside world. In winter, a detachment of 60 Cossacks sent by Tsar Vasily Shuisky, who brought with them 320 kg of gunpowder, managed to penetrate the besieged. And yet the position of the defenders of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery in winter time deteriorated sharply. Due to the overcrowding of large numbers of people (including women, old people and children) in the cells in winter and the lack of food, epidemics began. Scurvy was especially rampant. Almost two-thirds of the garrison died from disease.
With the onset of spring 1609, the besiegers became more active. After the winter siege, Sapega and Lisovsky decided to take the monastery by storm, the success of which they had almost no doubt about. They hoped that the remnants of the garrison, half dead from hunger and disease, would not provide strong resistance to their warriors.
On the night of May 28, 1609, the “Tushins” launched a general assault on the monastery. Meanwhile, the entire adult population of the fortress, capable of holding weapons in their hands, had gathered on the walls. There were no more than 500 such people. But the attackers, who correctly assessed the physical weakness and small numbers of the Troitsk garrison, underestimated its high fighting spirit. “The Christ-loving army and all the city people did not allow them to move their shields and rams, or lean against the ladder, they beat them from many cannons and arquebuses, and stabbed into the loopholes, and threw stones, and poured boiling water, and lit sulfur and tar, and threw them, and covered them with lime. their hair was bad, and they fought like that all night,” this is how clerk Avraamy Palitsyn describes that battle. By dawn the assault was repelled everywhere.
Two other attacks also ended in failure - at the end of June and July 1609. Having lost hope of taking the monastery by force, the “Tushins” no longer launched attacks. But the blockade continued. True, the besieged had already received news of troops moving to their aid from Novgorod under the command of governor M.V. Skopin-Shuisky. In October 1609, the monastery began to receive help from government troops. The detachments of governors D. Zherebtsov and G. Valuev with a total number of up to 1.5 thousand people broke through there. At the beginning of 1610, due to the approach of troops under the command of Skopin-Shuisky, the “Tushinites” had to leave their positions near the Trinity-Sergius Monastery. On January 12, they lifted the siege and retreated to Dmitrov.
The success of the 16-month defense of the famous Orthodox shrine had a huge moral impact on the Russian population, hitherto confused and confused by the chaos that erupted. This was the first example of mass popular courage and spiritual firmness in opposition to foreign aggression during the Time of Troubles. The defense of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery gave people important moral guidelines and marked the beginning of the spiritual consolidation of Russian society. The military-strategic side of this defense is no less important. She diverted significant forces of False Dmitry II from Moscow, which prevented the “Tushinites” from capturing the Russian capital. Getting stuck with his main forces near Moscow and the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, False Dmitry II was unable to effectively resist the offensive of the troops M.V. Skopin-Shuisky(see Dmitrov).
Book materials used: Nikolai Shefov. Battles of Russia. Military-historical library. M., 2002.
Literature:
Abraham (Palitsyn). The story of Abraham Palitsyn. M.-L., 1955;
Nikolaeva T.V. People's defense of the fortress of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery in 1608-1610. M., 1954;
LaskovskyF. F. Materials for the history of engineering art in Russia. Part 1. St. Petersburg, 1858, p. 236- 241
Heroic Resistance defenders Trinity Monastery troops of False Dmitry II during the Polish-Lithuanian intervention is inextricably linked with the history of the north-east of the Moscow region.
« “Everyone of the Moscow State is glad to retreat from Moscow.”...
The general situation of the country during this period was extremely difficult. Even after the Battle of Khodynka, on June 25, 1608, the open departure of service people from Moscow to Tushino, the headquarters of False Dmitry II, began. According to a contemporary of that time, cellarer of the Trinity Monastery, Abraham Palitsyn, many service landowners reasoned as follows: “If we stand and stay with the Poles together in Moscow and the Trinity St. Sergius Monastery, then our estates will not be ruined”. But this calculation, as events showed, was not correct. Other service people left the Moscow army, going home to guard their hearths. Troubles swept through the entire center, reached Vladimir-on-Klyazma, and crossed the Volga. As was written in one of the chronicles those terrible years: “all the cities of the Moscow state retreated from Moscow”...
“Let’s go, let’s humble them; and if they don’t submit, then we’ll scatter their homes into the air.”...
In order to understand the significance of subsequent events in the history of Moscow and Russian state In general, the important strategic position of the monastery should be clarified. In fact, its capture ensured a complete blockade of Moscow, and therefore led to the subjugation of the northeastern regions of the state. As the most prominent expert on the Time of Troubles, Sergei Fedorovich Platonov, correctly noted: “The Thief’s troops were in Tushino between the Smolensk and Tverskaya roads and controlled both of them. Of the other roads, all those that led to Kaluga and Tula in the regions affected by the rebellion were useless for Moscow; There was no need for the Tushins to occupy them with special detachments. But the roads that went to the north, northeast and southeast were of great importance for Moscow, namely: the Yaroslavl road to the Trinity Monastery and Alexander Sloboda; road to Dmitrov or “Dmitrovka”; the road to the village of Stromyn, Kirzhach and further to Shuya, Suzdal and Vladimir, the so-called “Stromynka”... All these roads were to be intercepted by the Thief’s troops.” .
False Dmitry II. Polish engraving. XVII century
In addition, the seizure of the monastery's treasures made it possible to strengthen the financial position of False Dmitry II, and the attraction of the influential monastery brethren to one's side promised the final collapse of the authority of Tsar Vasily Shuisky and the subsequent crowning of the impostor to the kingdom. Justifying to False Dmitry the need for a siege of the monastery, the Polish military leader Jan Peter Sapieha (1569-1611) allegedly told him: “There is a rumor that they are waiting for Prince Mikhail Skopin with the Swedes; when they come, they will occupy the Trinity stronghold and may be dangerous to us. While they are not yet strong, let us go and humble them; and if they do not submit, then we will scatter their homes through the air.”
Jan Piotr Sapieha (1569-1611).
From Tushino, bypassing Moscow, the regular army of Sapega and Alexander Jozef Lisovsky (1580-1616) were sent to the northern roads at the head of selected detachments of the Polish irregular cavalry, whose members were called “lisovchiki”.
Without receiving the salaries due to regular troops, they fed themselves only from trophies and robberies. The sending of the Lisovites on the Russian campaign, according to Polish historians, was due to the fact that they did not disdain to plunder the lands of their homeland Poland.
Lisovchiki. Colorized engraving, 1880
« There are more than two hundred people in the monastery of the Wonderworker.”...
In the first years of the 17th century, the Trinity Monastery had a wide variety of weapons - from cannons to four-legged thorns, which were scattered along the roads in order to damage the enemy’s horses. A deep ditch was dug along the eastern wall.
Around all the walls there were built up hollows, which consisted of pointed logs dug upright in several rows. Before False Dmitry II approached the walls of Moscow, the monastery was guarded by hired Cossacks. Later, in addition to them, about eight hundred nobles and boyar children and about a hundred archers were sent, led by the okolnichy prince Grigory Borisovich Dolgoruky-Roshcha (d. 1612) and the Moscow nobleman Alexei Ivanovich Golokhvastov.
Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Architectural ensemble restoration project. V. I. Baldin,1963.
At the time of the siege, in the monastery there were 609 warriors from the children of boyars, Cossacks and archers, 300 people of the monastery brethren, about 1000 Russian refugees who had gathered from the surrounding area. Total number The defenders of the monastery numbered about 2,500 people. Historians learned about the number of brethren in the monastery from the message of Abraham Palitsyn, who indicated in his work that 297 elderly monks died due to scurvy in the monastery during the siege.
Abraham P. Alitsyn.
A conclusion is also made about the total number of besieged based on the calculation of losses: “everyone in the monastery of the Life-Giving Trinity died in the siege, the elders and military men were beaten and the children of the boyars and servants, and servicemen, and archers, and Cossacks, gunners and defenders died from the siege weakness, and “meticulous people” (monastery peasants) and servants 2125 people - except for females and minors and the weak and old.” After some time, the number of defenders was replenished with 60 military men and 20 monastic servants. During the third attack, “more than two hundred people were killed in the monastery of the Wonderworker.”
September 23, 1608
Even before the siege of the monastery began, Lisovsky’s troops, moving to join the main forces, burned the village of Klementyevskoye, located near the monastery [3]. On September 23, 1608, having defeated the Moscow army on the Trinity Road between the villages of Rakhmanovo and Vozdvizhenskoye, located on the Trinity Road, the thirty thousand army of the commander of the Polish troops, Jan Peter Sapieha and Lisovsky, settled down near the monastery on the Klementyevsky Field. Here they were joined by Tatars, Circassians, Cossacks and Russian traitors.
Time of Troubles. Moscow region. Army of the Pretender. Artist: S.V. Ivanov, 1908
The day before, according to accepted defensive practice, by order of Dolgorukov, the surrounding monastery settlements, several villages and villages (Zubacheva, Blagoveshchenye, Afonasova, Chertkova) were burned. The population of the area was saved behind the walls of the monastery. Sapieha positioned his army on the western side, and Lisovsky on the southwestern side of the monastery, building forts and huts here.
Siege of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Artist: V.P. Vereshchagin, 1891
According to S.F. Platonov: “The movement of Sapega and Lisovsky, bypassing Moscow, transferred the entire Zamoskovye region to the power of Tushin, with the exception of a few fortified points. Having besieged the Trinity Monastery, the Tushins began to freely dispose of the path that the strongholds of the famous monastery were supposed to cover.” Soon Pereslavl-Zalessky and Rostov swore allegiance to False Dmitry.
"Vokhon Paradox"
A few days after the start of the siege, residents of the Vokhna volost swore allegiance to the impostor, as evidenced by a number of documents from the archives of Jan Sapieha [4].It is interesting that the Vokhon peasants were the most consistent adherents of the Pretender, despite the fact that in Pavlovo Posad local history there is a legend about the battle of local monastery peasants with the detachment of Lisovsky Colonel Stanislav Chaplinsky as if it happened on the banks of the Klyazma River in September 1609.
Jan Sapieha's secretaries noted that when he approached Trinity, he twice sent envoys to the monastery with a proposal to surrender. The texts of Sapieha’s messages cited by A. Palitsyn, as well as the text of the proud response of the besieged, as researchers have found out, are the fruit of the author’s imagination and literary works.
Shelling of the Trinity Monastery. Artist: N. Leventsev.
Having received a decisive refusal to the offer to surrender without a fight, on October 3 The interventionists began shelling shelling of the monastery from 63 guns.
Siege
The position of the monastery defenders was truly difficult. Despite the fact that they were provided with rye, it was not possible to grind it, since the mills were located outside the walls of the monastery. Crowded conditions forced people to live outdoors. Pregnant women had to give birth to children in front of strangers, and “no one hid with his shame.”
Jan Sapieha's camp. Lithography.
On October 13, as night fell, the first assault on the monastery walls began, but the besieged bravely met the attackers - the attacks were repulsed, and in the morning the siege weapons left by the enemy at the walls of the monastery were burned. On the night of October 24, another attack was repelled. The besieged made frequent forays.
Sally of the Besieged from Trinity Monastery. Artist: N. Leventsev.
IN night sortie On October 8, Lisovsky himself was wounded, on October 19, a new sortie was made, which escalated into a bloody battle, and on October 26, another sortie was made, during which Captain Gerasim’s company was exterminated, and Captain Bryushevsky was captured.
Siege of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery October 13, 1608
During one of the forays, having discovered a tunnel, two peasants from the village of Klementyevskoye blew themselves up in it, violating the insidious plans of the enemy.
According to an anonymous inventory of forays that has survived to this day, from October 3, 1608 to the end of January 1609, the besieged made 31 forays. Having examined the issue, A.V. Gorsky found mention of four more.The lack of firewood, so necessary for heating the monastery during the winter cold, led to the fact that “they had to be bought from the enemy at the cost of blood.”
On November 17, 1608, due to a lack of food, scurvy began in the monastery. At first, 10 people died per day, then 50 and even 100. On February 19 (March 1), 1609, in documents captured by Sapieha from the monastery and sent to Vasily Shuisky, it was reported that the combat and food supplies of the besieged were coming to an end.
"Cattle foray." Lithograph from 1862.
By March 1609, the siege had developed into a tactical confrontation. On April 1 (11), 1609, the Sapezhinites captured three archers with five hundred messages to Moscow. “The letters reported that scurvy was claiming dozens of lives every hour, and the monastery garrison could no longer hold out.” In May, the position of the defenders of the Trinity was so difficult that Sapieha again sent a parliamentarian to the monastery with a letter in which he demanded the immediate surrender of the fortress, but received no response.
Siege of the Trinity Monastery. Appearance of St. Sergius and Nikon to their enemies. Lithography.
On June 28 (July 8), the besieged fought off another decisive enemy attack. The leadership of individual detachments of the defenders was entrusted to three monks: Afanasy Oshcherin, Paisiy Litvin and Guriy Shishkin. After this new failure most of Sapieha's troops were forced to leave from under the walls of the monastery to join forces with A. Zborovsky. In July, when the Russian traitors Saltykov and Grammatin came to Sapieha’s camp with their troops, a new attack began three hours before dawn, but due to the fact that the messenger’s cannon fired ahead of schedule, it was thwarted. Meanwhile, no more than 200 defenders remained in the monastery.
The disciples of St. Sergius Micah, Bartholomew and Naum are sent to Prince Mikhail Vasilyevich for help October 1609
Explaining the circumstances that prevented the Polish-Lithuanian troops from taking Moscow under a complete blockade back in June 1608, S.F. Platonov wrote: “First of all, this was prevented by the resistance of Kolomna, which connected Moscow with the Ryazan region, and then the lack of funds for good monitoring of small roads like the Olshanskaya road, Khomutovka, etc.” .
Historians have noted that the liberation of the Moscow region began from the northeast. Having united near Alexandrov with Sheremetev’s troops and troops from Moscow led by I.S. Kurakin and B.M. Lykov, the troops of Skopin-Shuisky in the spring of 1610 began a slow advance towards Moscow along the largest roads of the northeast. As S.F. wrote Platonov: “Skopin systematically resorted to the same technique on all the roads that he mastered: he built forts on them and planted garrisons in them, which kept this route at their disposal. The Poles attributed the invention of this measure to the Swedish military leaders, but this was a purely Moscow technique, which found its best expression in the famous “walking cities”. It was used not only on the Trinity and Stromynskaya roads, where Skopin operated, but also on the Kolomenskaya road, where Tsar Vasily “ordered guards to be built for the passage of grain.” With the help of such forts, the Moscow army knocked out the Tushins from all their positions around Moscow, and reached Moscow itself.” According to the assumption of local historian M. Baev, not far from the Grebnevsky nursery there are impressive ramparts of one of these forts, but this opinion has not been confirmed archaeological excavations.
"Great dishonor, disgrace, disgrace and disgraceful reproach have been brought upon the King of Poland and his kingdom...
In October 1609, Yaroslavl, Kostroma and Galicians came to the aid of the besieged, about 900 people in total under the leadership of D. Zherebtsov. The supplies they brought were enough for another 12 weeks. Finally, Valuev with a detachment of 500 people, joining forces with Zherebtsov’s detachment, set fire to the interventionist camp. A lot of blood was shed on Red Mountain, on Kelarsky Pond, on Volkusha and Klementyevsky Field. When the Poles left their camp on January 12, the monks did not dare leave the walls of the monastery for another 8 days. Thus the siege of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery was lifted.
The end of the Siege of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery. Polish trophies of the governors Sapieha and Lisovsky, fleeing with their army, in the hands of M. Skopin-Shuisky
As Jan Sapieha wrote, summing up this bloody war: “And in the end, both the throne and the entire kingdom of Moscow were released from their hands and lost in vain, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Polish crown is burdened with useless unpaid debts, the states are devastated, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is involved in an eternal war with this people [Russian] and in great danger from other sides; Great disgrace, disgrace, disgrace and shameful reproach have been brought upon the King of Poland and his kingdom...
A. Poslykhalin, 2012. When using the material, a link to trojza.blogspot.com is required.
Spanish lit.
1.
Platonov S.F. Essays on the history of unrest in the Moscow state of the 16th-17th centuries. St. Petersburg, 1906., p. 279
2.
Palitsyn A. The legend of the siege of the Trinity Sergius Monastery from the Poles and Lithuania. M. 1822., p. 60
3.
Gorsky A.V. Historical description of the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra. Sergiev Posad, 1910.., p. 96
4.
Russian archive of Jan Sapieha 1608-1611: experience of reconstruction and source analysis. Ed.: O.V. Inshakova. Volgograd, 2005. p. 133
5.
Folomeeva N.V. The land of Pavlovo Posad. Orekhovo-Zuevo, 1999, p. 233
6. Lyubavsky M.K. Lithuanian Chancellor Lev Sapieha about the events of the Time of Troubles. M. 1901, p. 13.
Trinity siege- the siege of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery by the troops of False Dmitry II, which lasted almost sixteen months - from September 23, 1608 to January 12, 1610, when it was lifted by the troops of Mikhail Vasilyevich Skopin-Shuisky and Jacob Delagardie.
Previous Events
By the Time of Troubles, the Trinity-Sergius Monastery was already an influential religious center, the owner of a rich treasury and a first-class military fortress. The monastery was surrounded by 12 towers connected by a fortress wall 1250 meters long, 8 to 14 meters high, and 1 meter thick. There were 110 cannons placed on the walls and towers, there were numerous throwing devices, cauldrons for boiling boiling water and tar, and devices for throwing them onto the enemy. Having strengthened their position near Moscow, False Dmitry II and the Polish forces supporting him attempted to organize a complete blockade of it. The occupation of the monastery and subsequent control over it ensured a complete blockade of Moscow from the east and control over the north-eastern regions of Rus', the capture of the monastery’s treasures made it possible to strengthen the financial position, and the attraction of the influential monastic brethren to one’s side promised the final collapse of the authority of Tsar Vasily Shuisky and the subsequent crowning of the kingdom False Dmitry II.
To solve this problem, the united Polish-Lithuanian army of Hetman Jan Sapieha was sent to the monastery, reinforced by detachments of their Russian allies, Tushino and Cossacks under the command of Colonel Alexander Lisovsky. Data on the number of these troops differ (according to some sources - about 15 thousand people, according to other sources - up to 30 thousand people). Historian I. Tyumentsev provides the following data about the enemy troops: Polish-Lithuanian regiments and mercenaries numbered 4.5 thousand people, Tushino troops - 5-6 thousand. The army consisted of 6,770 cavalry and 3,350 infantry, the total number of troops was slightly more than 10 thousand people, which by the standards of that time was a significant fighting force. There were 17 guns, but they were all field guns, almost useless for waging a siege.
The government of Vasily Shuisky sent in advance the Streltsy and Cossack detachments of the governor Grigory Dolgorukov-Roscha and the Moscow nobleman Alexei Golokhvastov to the monastery. At the beginning of the siege, the defenders numbered up to 2,300 military men and about 1,000 peasants from neighboring villages, pilgrims, monks, ministers and workers of the monastery, who took an active part in its defense. During the entire period of the siege, Princess Ksenia Godunova was in the monastery, tonsured as a nun at the direction of False Dmitry I.
Beginning of the siege
The leaders of the Polish-Lithuanian army did not expect the stubborn defense of the monastery, based on the mass rejection of the reign of Vasily Shuisky by the population of Rus' and the paralysis of Russian state power. Therefore, the refusal of the Russian garrison to surrender the Trinity-Sergius Monastery without resistance put them in a difficult position. The first thing the besiegers had to do was hastily build their own fortified camps and prepare for the difficulties of the assault, while at the same time trying to negotiate with the besieged. However, in the last question, Sapieha faced failure - the archimandrite of the monastery Joasaph, in his response message to him, prioritized not the fulfillment of the oath to Tsar Vasily Shuisky, but the defense of Orthodoxy and the duty to “faithfully serve the sovereign who will be in Moscow.” Copies of this message in the form of letters were widely distributed throughout Rus', playing a significant role in the growth of the national self-awareness of the Russian people. Thus, from the very beginning, the defense of the monastery acquired, in the eyes of the besieged themselves and in the eyes of Russian society of that time, a national, deeply state character, multiplied by the significance of the armed defense of one of the main Orthodox shrines.
From October 1608, small skirmishes began: the besiegers fought with Russian spies, the besieged tried to cut off and destroy small groups of besiegers on construction work and forage procurement. The construction of tunnels under the monastery towers began. On the night of November 1, 1608, the first assault attempt was made with a simultaneous attack three sides. The besiegers set fire to one of the advanced Russian wooden fortifications. The flames of the fire illuminated the formations of the advancing troops. The attackers were stopped and put to flight by targeted fire from numerous Russian artillery. During the subsequent foray, scattered groups of Tushin residents hiding in the ditches were destroyed. The first assault ended in complete failure with significant damage to the besiegers.
The leaders of the monastery garrison adhered to active defense tactics. In December 1608 - January 1609, daring forays managed to recapture some of the besiegers' livestock and hay supplies, destroy a number of outposts, and set fire to some of the besiegers' fortifications. However, at the same time they suffered significant losses, amounting to 325 people killed and captured in December alone. There were also defectors to the enemy from among the garrison, including nobles and archers. Apparently, thanks to their testimony, in January 1609, one of the forays of the besieged almost ended in tragedy - the enemy attacked them from an ambush and cut them off from the monastery, and the cavalry of the besiegers attacked the open monastery gates. Some of the attackers even managed to break into the monastery. The situation was again saved by numerous Russian artillery, which with accurate fire caused confusion among the Tushino residents who attacked the soldiers who had gone on a sortie. Thanks to this support, the archers who took part in the sortie returned to the monastery, having lost over 40 people only killed. The enemy cavalry that burst into the monastery were mostly exterminated by peasants and pilgrims, who pelted them with stones and logs in the narrow streets between the buildings.
Events of 1609
From January 1609, the situation of the besieged worsened - due to the lack of food supplies, scurvy began. Already in February, mortality reached 15 people per day. The few reserves of gunpowder also began to be depleted. Hetman Jan Sapieha, who received information about this, began preparing for a new assault, planning to blow up the fortress gates with prepared powerful firecrackers. In turn, the governors of Vasily Shuisky tried to support the besieged by sending a convoy with a load of 20 pounds of gunpowder to the monastery, accompanied by 70 Cossacks and 20 monastery servants. The Poles managed to capture messengers, whom the senior of this convoy sent to the monastery to coordinate the plan of action. Under torture, the messengers revealed the information they knew. As a result, on the night of February 16, 1609, the convoy fell into one of the ambushes, and the Cossacks guarding the convoy entered into an unequal battle. Hearing the sound of battle, Voivode Dolgoruky-Roshcha launched a sortie. As a result, the ambush was dispersed, and the valuable convoy broke through into the monastery. Frustrated by the failure, Colonel Lisovsky ordered the next morning to take the captured messengers and four prisoners taken in the night battle under the walls of the monastery and brutally execute them. In response, Dolgoruky-Roshcha ordered all the prisoners in the monastery to be taken to the walls and slaughtered - 61 people, most of them Tushin Cossacks and mercenaries. The result was a revolt of the Tushin troops among the besiegers, who blamed Lisovsky for the death of their comrades. From that time on, discord in the besieging camp began to intensify.
Discord also arose in the garrison of the monastery between the archers and the monks. There were facts of people fleeing to the enemy. Sapega, who knew about the difficulties of the besieged, made preparations for a new assault, and to guarantee success, he sent the Pole Martyash, a defector, to the monastery with the task of gaining confidence in the Russian governor, and at the decisive moment, disabling part of the fortress artillery. Participating in sorties and firing cannons at the Tushin residents, Martyash really gained confidence in the governor Dolgoruky. But on the eve of the assault, scheduled for June 28, an Orthodox Litvin ran into the monastery and reported a spy. Martyash was captured and, under torture, told everything he knew about the upcoming assault. Although by that time the forces of the garrison had decreased by more than three times since the beginning of the siege, their correct placement in the places of enemy attacks made it possible to defend the monastery this time too. The attackers were repulsed in a night battle, and during the subsequent sortie, more than 30 people were captured. But the number of soldiers among the besieged decreased to 200 people.
Therefore, Sapega immediately began to prepare a third assault. By joining the Tushino detachments operating in the vicinity, he increased the number of his troops to 12,000 people. This time the attack had to be carried out from all four sides in order to achieve complete fragmentation of the insignificant forces of the garrison. The signal for the attack was a cannon shot, which would start a fire in the fortress; if a fire did not break out, then a second shot, and if even then a fire did not break out, then a third shot, regardless of the results. The assault was scheduled for July 28, 1609. Voivode Dolgoruky-Roshcha, who saw the preparations for it, armed all the peasants and monks, ordered all the gunpowder to be taken to the walls, but there was practically no chance of success in the battle.
Only a miracle could save the besieged, and it happened. The confusing system of signals for the assault played a fatal role - some units rushed to the assault after the first shot, others - after the subsequent ones. In the darkness, the ranks of the attackers were mixed up. In one place, the German mercenaries heard the screams of the Russian Tushins behind them and, deciding that they were the besieged on a sortie, they entered into battle with them. In another place, with flashes of shots, the Polish column saw a detachment of Tushins approaching it from the flank and also opened fire on it. The artillery of the besieged opened fire on the battlefield, increasing the confusion and panic that arose. The battle between the besiegers turned into a bloody massacre of each other. The number of people killed by each other amounted to hundreds of people.
End of the siege
Essentially, the inconsistency of the attackers became a turning point in the struggle for the monastery. Long-standing disagreements between the Tushino people on the one hand, the Poles and the mercenaries on the other, spilled out into the open. A split occurred in the besieging army. Many Tushin atamans withdrew their troops from the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, and in the remaining detachments desertion became widespread. Following the Tushins, foreign mercenaries left the Sapega camp. The besieged, on the contrary, were confident that the miraculous salvation of the monastery was the result of divine intercession and that the end of the siege was near.
In the autumn of 1609, the Russian troops of Prince Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky inflicted a number of defeats on the Tushino people and Poles, after which they began an offensive towards Moscow. Part of the forces was allocated to fight Sapieha’s army, blocking it in its own camp. Regular communication was restored between the besieged and the troops going to the rescue.
On October 19, 1609 and January 4, 1610, the defenders received reinforcements: detachments of archers from Voivode Zherebtsov (900 people) and Grigory Valuev (500 people) broke into the monastery. The reinforced garrison began active military operations. In one of the forays, the archers set fire to the wooden fortifications of Sapieha’s camp. The enemy's numerical superiority did not allow them to break into the camp, but the outcome of the fight had already become clear. Knowing about the movement of Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky's troops from Novgorod to the monastery, Sapieha ordered to quickly lift the siege. On January 12, 1610, Polish-Lithuanian troops moved away from the monastery towards Dmitrov. There they were overtaken and defeated by the Russian detachment of governor Ivan Kurakin. As a result, Sapieha brought back a little more than 1000 people to False Dmitry II.
By the end of the siege, no more than 1,000 people remained in the besieged monastery from those who were there at the beginning of the siege, of whom the garrison numbered less than 200 people.
The successful end of the siege had a significant impact on the mood of the population and raised the morale of the army, which for the first time during the Time of Troubles gave such a decisive rebuff to foreign invaders.
The very beginning of the 17th century was marked by a difficult economic situation in Russia. Mass famine contributed to the emergence of protest sentiments, which resulted in a powerful peasant uprising led by Ivan Bolotnikov. The Polish-Lithuanian feudal lords took advantage of the difficult situation in Russia. In 1604, they nominated the impostor False Dmitry I as their protege to the Russian throne and invaded the Russian lands. After the overthrow of the first, a second impostor appeared, " Tushino thief"False Dmitry II. His troops and the Polish army blocked Moscow from the south and west and sought to cut off the approaches to it from the north, where the Trinity-Sergius Monastery was an outpost for the defense of the capital.
In the fortress there was a strong detachment of soldiers led by governor G.B. Dolgorukov-Roscha and L.I. Golokhvostov, sent here by the tsar to support the fortress. The fortress was well armed, as evidenced by the artifacts subsequently found: cannons and arquebuses of various calibers, cannonballs, siege cauldrons for boiling resin, various types of bladed weapons and specially invented thorns, the so-called “Trinity garlic,” which were scattered under the hooves of the enemy cavalry.
A detachment of Tushino residents of 15 thousand people, led by governors Sapega and Lisovsky, approached the walls of the fortress in September 1608. Thus began a sixteen-month siege. The enemies carefully prepared for it; their troops outnumbered the Russians and were well armed. The map presented in the museum shows in detail the plan for conducting a siege of the fortress. The events of that time are also illustrated by paintings, lithographs and drawings. They talk about the true heroism of the defenders of the fortress, whose main force was peasants and artisans from neighboring villages and villages, burned and abandoned by the inhabitants when the enemies approached. There were about 2,400 people capable of fighting, and the rest of the besieged were women, children and old people.
The Poles offered the besieged to surrender, but the defenders of the fortress replied that even a ten-year-old boy would laugh at this, that there was no benefit for a person “to love darkness more than light and shift lies to truth, and honor to dishonor, and freedom to bitter work.”
Then the enemies decided to take the fortress by storm. The first big attack was launched by Sapega on October 13, 1608. Frequent attacks continued throughout the autumn, but the fortress remained impregnable. The digging that the Poles did under one of the towers did not help. The mine became known from captured soldiers, and two peasants from the sub-monastery village of Klementyev, Nikon Shilov and Slota, blew it up, sacrificing their lives. Other defenders of the fortress also became famous for their heroism. For example, the peasant Vanity entered into a duel with an entire enemy detachment that broke through to the Water Gate.
It was hard for those besieged within the walls of the monastery. They suffered severely from hunger, lack of water, enemy shelling, scurvy and other diseases. Firewood and food were obtained through fighting. Ksenia Godunova, who was in the monastery during the siege of the fortress, reported in her letter about hunger, illness, and betrayals among the boyars, nobles and even monks.
The selfless heroism of the defenders of the fortress and the help of the detachment under the command of the talented young commander M.V. Skopin-Shuisky did their job: the siege was lifted, the interventionists retreated in January 1610.
Soon a wave of nationwide resistance to the enemy swept across the entire Russian land. An example of exceptional heroism was shown by the defenders of ancient Smolensk. The first tried to organize the fight against the Polish-Lithuanian troops civil uprising. But a decisive victory over the interventionists was achieved only in 1612 by the troops of the second people's militia under the leadership of Kozma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky.
In the Trinity-Sergius Museum, the things of the remarkable Russian patriot are kept as relics - the silver powder flask of Prince D. Pozharsky and the bridle from his war horse, donated to the monastery in memory of the heroic struggle in 1612. Then the people's militia stopped for several days at the walls of the monastery.
However, the war is not over yet. In 1618, Van Chaplinsky and Prince Vladislav approached the monastery with their troops, but did not dare to besiege the Russian stronghold.
Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Modern look
The fortress of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery was an example of perseverance and courage for other watchmen near Moscow. In 1611-1612, letters were drawn up and reproduced here calling for a nationwide struggle by the interventionists. Archimandrite Dionysius of the Trinity Monastery took part in the preparation of the letters.
One of the significant literary works early XVII century - "The Legend", written by one of the Palitsyn brothers. Brothers Dionysius and Abraham Palitsyn also contributed a silver cup with an inscription to the monastery.
In 1618 the intervention ended. In the village of Deuline, a truce was concluded with Poland for a period of 11 years. In memory of this significant event, a wooden church was built.
After the end of the intervention, the monastery's economy was quickly restored. The Romanov dynasty, which ascended the throne, confirmed the previous rights and feudal privileges of the Trinity Monastery. Already by mid-17th century centuries his wealth increased. According to data from 1641, the Trinity-Sergius Monastery took first place among all other monastic communities in the number of peasant households belonging to it (16,811). His wealth far exceeded the possessions of the Romanovs (7689 households) and the patriarch (6481 households). The second half of the 17th century passed relatively calmly for the monastery. The monastery, being the largest landowner, concentrated considerable efforts on auditing and organizing the management of its entire expanded farm, which was often left unattended in remote provinces and districts.
L.E. Kalmykova, O.V. Kruglova, T.V. Nikolaeva, L.M. Spirina, L.F. Truskova
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