The numerous vanguard of the Polovtsi swept round the advancing Vladimir and sent word quickly to Kobyk, the chief Khan in command of the army, that they had the Russians surrounded. The Polovtsi were delighted. “We have not worked for this,” said they, “but the Russians have come to us. Great wealth is falling into our hands; we will take it.” And they rushed with shrill, piercing shouts to the battle. Vladimir withstood the fierce onset. The youngest of the princes held his ground; he did not quiver. The Polovtsi, not dreaming of resistance such as that, were astounded and whirled back on both sides to give a blow with more impetus. Meanwhile Kobyk, the commander, moved out strong detachments. These rushed forward swiftly. The Khan, thinking that there were no attackers save those who were fighting in front of him, commanded to strike savagely, to break, and then to hunt down Vladimir’s detachment.
But, all at once, the Polovtsi saw new forces hurrying forward. These were the princes who had set out with Vladimir, but Kobyk mistook them for Sviatoslav and his whole army. The Polovtsi, now greatly alarmed, wished to escape from the field, but that second force held them at bay. A fierce battle raged, till at last the Polovtsi were thrown into disorder. At that juncture, Sviatoslav and the older prince came up. The victory was complete. Kobyk was captured, and with him his two sons; Toblie with his son and also his brother. Of Khans alone twenty were captured, and common men were taken in great numbers. Among Khans who fell, the chief one was Tarsuk. The battle was on Monday, June 30, 1184. “God gave an immense victory over pagans, and Sviatoslav returned to Kief with great glory and honor.”
Igor, the Chernigoff prince, who had not gone with Sviatoslav [[131]]against the Polovtsi, had, besides land questions, many cares to detain him at home. He was a son-in-law of Eight Minds. This old Galitch prince had long since divorced his wife, a daughter of Yuri Dolgoruki, hence a sister of Vsevolod of Vladimir, with whom she had taken refuge. Eight Minds had also expelled his legitimate son, Vladimir, who for a time could find no asylum in any place. From Galitch he turned first to Roman, son of Mystislav, in Volynia, but this stern prince had so much fear of old Eight Minds that, for reasons of interest and policy, he would not let the exile pass even one night in his capital. No matter where Vladimir tried, and he even went to Vsevolod, his uncle in Vladimir, he found no reception till he turned at last to his sister, and Igor, her husband, in Chernigoff. With them he found rest, for they met him with kindness. He lived two years in Chernigoff,—lived there until he was reconciled with his dying father, old Eight Minds.
This connection of Igor with Galitch brought ruin later on to his sons, but who in that day could foresee this? Just at the time of Vladimir’s visit, a wave of delight was passing over Russia. Sviatoslav’s victory over the Polovtsi was magnified as the “Erela triumph.” All men glorified this marvelous adventure. The Chernigoff princes had taken no part in it, so now the thought dropped into Igor’s mind to win glory in this very field, independently, and at all costs. He boasted of his own campaigns, and said to his warriors: “Though the Polovtsi came to those princes and they fought with them, they dared not follow them. But with you I will cross the Don and crush them. If true success comes, we will pursue them to places to which our grandfathers never thought, even in dreams, of advancing. We will win for ourselves splendid glory.”
With his own men and a detachment of Chernigoff warriors, Igor set out on his adventure, April 23, 1185, accompanied by his son, now touching manhood, his brother Vsevolod the “Rushing Bull,” and a few neighboring princes with their forces. He met the Polovtsi in a desperate battle, and was vanquished with great slaughter. He and his fellow princes all went beyond the Don,—but they went as prisoners. “They were taken from the saddles of princes and put on the saddles of captives.” Along the whole Luko Morye (Sea of Azoff) shouts of delight rose from pagans. [[132]]At the place where the Don River touches the Sea of Azoff, thousands of Polovtsi were singing and celebrating, not honor to Russia, but woeful disaster. “Little Polovtsi boys and beautiful Polovtsi maidens magnified the fame of their people.”
This crushing defeat of Igor’s forces roused all the Polovtsi to greater activity, and gave them at once boundless insolence. They sent a message to Sviatoslav: “Come hither and ransom thy brothers, or wait at thy own place till we come for our people.” By this they referred to Kobyk and the other Khans captured on the Erela. And now the Polovtsi raced over Russia. They burned and plundered, and seized captives. The gallant Vladimir, son of Glaib, defended himself at Pereyaslavl on the Alta. “Wounded from head to foot,” he was borne out of battle dead, as his friends thought. A year later he died of those wounds, though he had apparently recovered, and had warred against the Polovtsi a second time. After Vladimir’s death there was no heir to Pereyaslavl on the Alta, hence the place went to Vsevolod of Vladimir.
Sviatoslav’s grief was unspeakable when he heard what had happened to Igor and his comrades. “Striplings!” said he, overwhelmed with sorrow and bitterly bewailing their rash enterprise. “Why did they tarnish the glory of victory? Why did they ruin the work of an old man and his allies? Why did they destroy a God-given triumph?” He had walled up the road against pagans, and the “striplings” had thrown this wall down again.
All measures possible were taken by Sviatoslav to ward off the onrushing Polovtsi, but these measures were inadequate and in no way proportionate to the strength of the enemy. Igor was humble in presence of the misfortune which he had caused. He prayed and did penance, often repeating: “Why have I remained alive; I, who have destroyed so many people?”
Not soon did those robber raids cease, but they did cease in time, not so much because the Polovtsi had inflicted great and sufficient loss on the Russians as because that flush of joy at a victory, which for them seemed well-nigh incredible, died away; and then the two camps, one on the Kief-Chernigoff border, and the other on the Polovtsi steppe, resumed their former attitude. [[133]]