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My fairy-tale version of this battle ignores the incredible amount of political and military maneuvering that led up to the event itself: the threats, the skirmishes, the deaths, the marriages, the delays.
But the great events of my version of Kulikovo are drawn from history:
A warrior-monk named Aleksandr Peresvet really fought in single combat with a Tatar warrior named Chelubey, and died victorious. Dmitrii really did trade places with one of his minor boyars, so that he could fight with his men, unmarked by the enemy. Oleg of Ryazan really did play an ambiguous role in the battle: perhaps he betrayed the Russians, perhaps he betrayed the Tatars, perhaps he merely strove to chart a path between the two.
All that is true.
And perhaps, beneath the battle recorded by history, there was fought another, between holy men and chyerti, over how they were to coexist in this land of theirs. Who knows? But the concept of dvoeveriye, dual faith, persisted in Russia up until the Revolution. Orthodoxy coexisted with paganism in peace. Who is to say that wasn’t the work of a girl with strange gifts and green eyes?
Who is to say, in the end, that the three guardians of Russia are not a witch, a frost-demon, and a chaos-spirit?
I find it fitting.
Thank you for reading all the way to the end. I started this series in a tent on a beach in Hawaii when I was twenty-three years old, and now you are holding the final piece of that work in your hands.
I am still astonished by the journey, and more grateful than I can say that it happened.
A NOTE ON RUSSIAN NAMES
RUSSIAN CONVENTIONS OF NAMING AND address—while not as complicated as the consonant clusters would suggest—are so different from English forms that they merit explanation. Modern Russian names can be divided into three parts: the first name, the patronymic, and the last, or family, name. In medieval Rus’, people generally had only a first name, or (among the highborn) a first name and a patronymic.
FIRST NAMES AND NICKNAMES
RUSSIAN IS EXTREMELY RICH in diminutives. Any Russian first name can give rise to a large number of nicknames. The name Yekaterina, for example, can be shortened into Katerina, Katya, Katyusha, or Katenka, among other forms. These variations are often used interchangeably to refer to a single individual, according to the speaker’s degree of familiarity and the whims of the moment.
Aleksandr—Sasha
Dmitrii—Mitya
Vasilisa—Vasya, Vasochka
Rodion—Rodya
Yekaterina—Katya, Katyusha
PATRONYMIC
THE RUSSIAN PATRONYMIC IS always derived from the first name of an individual’s father. It varies according to gender. For example, Vasilisa’s father is named Pyotr. Her patronymic—derived from her father’s name—is Petrovna. Her brother Aleksei uses the masculine form: Petrovich.
To indicate respect in Russian, you do not use Mr. or Mrs., as in English. Rather, you address someone by first name and patronymic together. A stranger meeting Vasilisa for the first time would call her Vasilisa Petrovna. When Vasilisa is masquerading as a boy, she calls herself Vasilii Petrovich.
When a highborn woman married, in medieval Rus’, she would exchange her patronymic (if she had one) for a name derived from her husband’s name. Thus Olga, who was Olga Petrovna as a girl, has become Olga Vladimirova (whereas Olga and Vladimir’s daughter is called Marya Vladimirovna).
GLOSSARY
BABA YAGA—An old witch who appears in many Russian fairy tales. She rides around on a mortar, steering with a pestle and sweeping her tracks away with a broom of birch. She lives in a hut that spins round and round on chicken legs. In The Winternight Trilogy, she is Vasya’s great-grandmother.
BANNIK—“Bathhouse dweller,” the bathhouse guardian in Russian folklore.
BATYUSHKA—Literally, “little father,” used as a respectful mode of address for Orthodox ecclesiastics.
BELIYE—Porcini, a kind of mushroom.
BOYAR—A member of the Kievan or, later, the Muscovite aristocracy, second in rank only to a knyaz, or prince.
BROTHER ALEKSANDR PERESVET—Historically a monk and member of the Trinity Lavra under Sergius of Radonezh; he fought a single combat with Chelubey to open the Battle of Kulikovo. Both men were killed, but according to Russian sources, Chelubey was unhorsed first.
BYZANTINE CROSS—Also called the patriarchal cross, this cross has a smaller crosspiece above the main crossbar, and sometimes a slanted crossbar near the foot.
CAFFA—A city in Crimea, now known as Feodosia. In the era of The Winternight Trilogy, the city was under the control of the Genoese.
CATHEDRAL OF THE ASSUMPTION—Uspenksy Sobor. Also known as the Cathedral of the Dormition. Commemorates the dormition (aka falling asleep, aka death of the Mother of God and her being taken to heaven). Located in the modern-day Moscow Kremlin, the original limestone structure was begun in 1326 and consecrated in 1327. The building presently on the site dates to the sixteenth century.
CHELUBEY—Called Chelubey by Russian chroniclers and Temir-Murza by his own countrymen, Chelubey was the champion for the Tatar side at the battle of Kulikovo. He was defeated by Aleksandr Peresvet.
CHERNOMOR—An old wizard and sea-king in Russian folklore whose name literally derives from “Black Sea.” With his thirty-three sons he would come out of the sea to guard the island of the swan-maiden in the fairy tale of Tsar Saltan.
CHYERTI (SINGULAR: CHYERT)—Devils. In this case a collective noun meaning the various spirits of Russian folklore. Another, and possibly better, term is nyechistiye sili, literally “unclean forces,” but that is an unwieldy mouthful for Anglophone readers.
DAN—Tribute; in this case, the tribute owed by the conquered Rus’ to their Mongol overlords.
DED GRIB—Grandfather Mushroom. There is no historical source for this one; he was inspired by and is a shout-out to a character in the old Soviet children’s movie Morozko.
DMITRII DONSKOI—Called Dmitrii Ivanovich in The Winternight Trilogy, he earned the moniker “of the Don” following his victory at the Battle of Kulikovo.
DOMOVOI—In Russian folklore, the guardian of the household, the household-spirit. Feminized in The Winter of the Witch as domovaya. In some sources, the domovoi had a wife, called the kikimora, but I felt that feminizing the name of the main household-guardian was more appropriate for a witch’s house.
DVOR—Dooryard. The space between outbuildings in the property of a highborn medieval Russian.
