This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
From YKTTW Working Title: Combat By Champion
(from ykktw) Koveras: Truth in Television: In the 1380 Battle of Kulikovo, when Russian knyaz Dmitri decisively defeated the Golden Horde for the first time, both armies put forth a champion to decide the outcome without actually fighting. The Mongol champion was Temir-murza and the Russian, a warrior monk Alexander Persvet. Unfortunately, the two killed each other in the first round and an all-out battle still took place.
T Beholder: RTFM (where FM != chapbook or 'historic fantasy'). It's far from "defeated the Golden Horde". Mamai was commander who could not become legitimate Khan, so he tried to use puppet rulers, then attempted military takeover with foreign help and ended up soundly beaten by Dmitri (trying to tax and mess with strongest vassal before firmly taking the throne is bad idea) and then once more by Tokhtamysh (genghisid and thus legitimate pretender). As to champions, it's unlikely that everyone (including Genoese) walked so far just to look, but skirmishes before main battles (for morale boost) seems to be more or less normal practice for the time, so why not champions' duel.
Koveras: Uh, you see, I learned the history of the Medieval Russia back in fifth grade, and they taught us that Battle of Kulikovo was the turning point, after which the Mongol rule over Rus started to decline, preceded by Ivan Kalita's diplomatic and economic victories that assured Moscow's leading role among other principalities, and followed by the Mexican Standoff on Ugra that demonstrated the Golden Horde's impotency and eventually led most principalities to unite around Moscow, until Ivan IV proclaimed himself Tsar of all Russia. :)
T Beholder: That's why i dislike low-to-mid school education: it teaches catchy slogans.
Yes, it was sort of a milestone of Horde's decline, when it failed to handle take-over issue on its own and its Russian vassals had to deal with both Mamai and Algirdas without strong aid; and yes, split Russian lands acted together for the first time in centuries. But it's still as far from "defeated the Golden Horde" as ever possible, because Dmitri de-facto protected remnants of old-style Horde (weakened by infighting) from being finished off then and there, and thus also helped the next legitimate Khan. That is, result was maximal possible reconstruction of formal relations, not reformation. It became obvious that balance of power did changed, but otherwise situation was restored to an old arrangement.
Also, the idea of major strategical issue decided by combat of champions still smells of heroic fantasy too much. :]
Meta Four: The Jedi's victory against Maul in The Phantom Menace was not Combat By Champions. While they fought Maul, two other battles were occuring simultaneously, as well as the Queen's retinue sneaking into the castle to capture the Viceroy. Hence why I removed this:
- Darth Maul, Qui-Gon, and Obi-Wan in The Phantom Menace
Av12971: What would you consider the Combat of the Thirty? Does it fit this trope, because it did involve each side sending out champions, 30 each.
