About the single combat of Prince Mstislav and Rededya: a comparative historical analysis of the culture of single combats in Ancient Rus at the end of X - the first half of XI centuries

Abstract

The article examines the story of the "Tale of Bygone Years" about the single combat of Prince Mstislav and Rededya as an evidence of ancient Russian military culture of single combats. The evidence is correlated with other written and archaeological sources to establish its connection with the actual political history. For comparative study, the evidence is correlated with other Old Russian written sources about single combats and contemporary narrations about single combats in the monuments of Byzantine historiography. During the comprehensive study of the text of Mstislav's prayer, the evidence of the military veneration of the Mother of God in Byzantium and in Russia, including references to prayers to the Mother of God, is considered. The conducted research allows us to conclude about the influence of the Byzantine military tradition and religious culture on the military culture of Russia. The relationship is most clearly traced in the religious appearance of the single combat, while the chronicle narration in question is attributed to the earliest evidence of the military veneration of the Mother of God in Russia. There are similar ideas about single combats as events that deserve to be preserved in historiography. It is not easy to determine the relationship between the organization and conduct of single combats, due to the scarcity of chronicle data. The Byzantine influence, presumably, was expressed both in the rethinking of ideas about single combats, and in the veneration of the Mother of God as an assistant or intercessor in the event of war.