What do Russian helmets with Arabic inscriptions prove?
and cavalry among them is steep as a hill.
Will fill all the hollows and the terrain will be leveled,
and the mountains are strung down like beads on a braid.
And the faces of the warriors are covered with swords,
spears are set. I will understand their letter.
He raised the lion's paws above the chain mail,
and the army hears his serpentine gaze.
Arab breed and banners, and horses,
and the armor, and the poison of arrows, which plague the enemies.
Arab poet Abu Nuwas and al-Mutanabbi, 915 — 965
Samples of material culture of past centuries. Not so long ago, an article was published on VO that talked about ... no matter what, it is important that it was written there that the Arabic inscriptions on the "helmet of Alexander Nevsky" prove something. But they do not prove anything, since the helmet of Alexander Nevsky as such does not exist. And that which does not exist cannot prove anything! But do we have helmets with Arabic inscriptions in museums? Well, let's say in the same Armory Kremlin chamber? There is! And what do they prove? But we’ll tell you about this now.
Not the oldest, but the most famous
To begin with, especially ancient helmets made of iron have been preserved to an insulting amount. And it’s clear why. It was worth stopping to look after such a helmet, as it was eaten by rust.
Here is the helmet of Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich - just one of such rare artifacts. This is an old Russian helmet, which is usually dated to the second half of the XII or the first half of the XIII century. Today it is exhibited in the Armory of the Moscow Kremlin, and is rightfully considered one of the most outstanding monuments of the national arms business. So functional and truly beautiful.
Turkish helmet of the beginning of the XVII century. from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Please note that it is very similar to Old Russian helmets or Russian helmets are similar to this helmet. Chicken and egg are a classic of the genre and a real find for folklorists. For us, it’s important that then a visor and a “hand-bearing arrow” were added to helmets of this type, so that it was possible to raise and lower the “headphones”, the head, and it turned out this way ... “Jericho hat” or “eastern bourguignot” "(Burgonet), as such helmets were called in the West
Famous Russian scientist A.N. Kirpichnikov, who created a typology of ancient Russian weapons and helmets, including, attributed it to type IV. And he emphasized that it was this helmet that became one of the first artifacts from which the study of Russian antiquities began.
History his findings have long ago in itself turned into a kind of legend of Russian archeology. Like, a certain resident of the village of Lykova A. Larionova, who was standing near the city of Yuryev-Podolsky, went in the autumn of 1808 of the year to the "pinch nuts" forest. She went, and she saw a helmet near the walnut bush in a bump, and chain mail beneath it. And the peasant brought her find to the village headman, because, as there was a holy image on his helmet, he transferred it to the bishop. And in the end, the helmet reached Alexander I himself, and he gave it to study at the Academy of Arts. They studied the helmet for a long time and decided that it was the helmet of the father of Alexander Nevsky, that it was most likely made of several metal plates (it wasn’t possible to find out for sure), and also that he had been reworked several times.
The helmet was decorated with a forehead plate with the image of the Archangel Michael, and there was an inscription in Cyrillic letters: "Fill the archangelistine of Guy Michael, help the servant of the Holy Theodore." A.N. Kirpichnikov believed that this helmet could be redone at least three times, and that before he fell into the hands of Prince Yaroslav, he had other owners. According to the historian K.A. Zhukov, the helmet had no cutouts for the eyes, and it was immediately made with a half mask. N.V. Chebotarev - the author of an interesting article “Helmet of Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich” indicates that the head-mounted icon covers part of the inscription, and this, in theory, could not be if all the details of the helmet were made sequentially.
Helmets from the cinema
As a child, young Alexander undoubtedly indulged in his father's "military reference" and tried on his helmet. This or some other, again, does not matter. It is important how “the helmet of Yaroslav Vsevolodovich” was typical for its time. It’s impossible to say that it was all such helmets that our soldiers had ... because of the scarcity of the material base. However, this is not impossible. It’s just that ordinary soldiers had it simpler: the prince on the helmet had a silver image of the archangel Michael, and the ordinary soldier most likely had the helmet itself.
This helmet seems to have nothing to do with the topic, but the "picture" is indicative of the fact that ... "cinema is cinema." The poor knight of 1242 of the year went to war in a helmet a la toad head of 1480 ... He was arranged so that the tournament spear didn’t fall into the viewing gap when hit. But this is in a tournament. In battle, it was enough for him to straighten up, and he would not see anything. Just some kind of suicide. Well, Eisenstein ... he obviously decided to laugh a little at the Germans!
By the way, it was with reliance on this helmet that two (by the way, why two and why he wears them at the same time) helmets were made for the shooting of the legendary film "Alexander Nevsky". The helmet in which he actually fights on the battlefield with a half mask and a straight sharp nose looks especially impressive and menacing. And then they began to print sets of postcards on which Prince Alexander was depicted in a “cinema helmet”. And since they were printed in thousand copies, it is not surprising that for a long time we all thought that the “cinema helmet” was modeled after it really existed, although this was actually not so.
Helmets of Ivan the Terrible and his son
Time passed, military modes changed, armor improved and helmets finally learned how to forge from one sheet. The fact that this is so is again convinced by the exhibits of the Armory and the Stockholm Armory, which holds the helmet of the Tsar ... Ivan the Terrible! For the first time, the helmet of Ivan the Terrible is mentioned in the records of the Royal Arsenal in Stockholm in the 1663 year, but how it got there, by what fate is unknown.
Typologically, this is "shell", that is, a high conical helmet with a long spire. In the description of the helmet in the Royal Arsenal it is written: height - 380 mm, the greatest width 190 mm, weight of the helmet 1180 g. Also in the description it is reported that it was made around 1533 year, and came to Stockholm from Warsaw in 1655 year. This helmet is very similar to the exhibit from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
But what is written about the helmet in the previous photo in the accompanying entry at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: “This extremely high conical helmet deserves attention as an example of what helmets were worn in Iran and Russia in the late XV and early XVI centuries. Similar helmets depicted in miniatures are often decorated with a small pennant attached to a spire. Culture: southern Russian or Iranian. Material: steel, iron, copper alloy, leather. Dimensions: height 46,7 cm; weight 1560 g.
It is interesting that the helmet of Ivan the Terrible has inscriptions in Arabic, but there is also a Russian inscription of the following content: “The helmet of Prince Ivan Vasilyevich, Grand Duke, son of Vasily Ivanovich, lord of all Russia, autocrat”. But Prince Ivan Vasilievich became king in January of the 1547 year, when he was 16 years old. This means that the helmet and this inscription were made before that, that is, for the still very young Grand Duke Ivan Vasilievich! And was he fit on the head of an adult king, and if he was not fit, then to whom did he give it to him, and who wore it afterwards? Obviously, the work is oriental, but ... redone by a Russian master for the needs of the young sovereign.
The helmet that belonged to Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich, the son of Ivan the Terrible, looks like the helmet of his father, it is the same helmet, but it is not so richly decorated. But on it there is also a Russian-language inscription that says that it was made by the command of the prince and tsar Ivan Vasilyevich for his son John Ioannovich in the summer of 7065 (1557) on June 8 day.
And finally, the helmet of Alexander Nevsky from the Armory of the Moscow Kremlin. Drawing from the book "Antiquities of the Russian state, published by the Highest Command" (1853 g.). At that time, such high-quality drawings were commonplace in books on the cultural values of the Russian Empire! Then there were no requirements to provide public domain photos. The figure shows the front and back of the helmet.
Finally, we got to the notorious helmet of Alexander Nevsky, which in fact is the helmet of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich. At first, they say, he was Alexander Nevsky, and then he was remade for the first tsar-father from the Romanov clan. This has been argued for quite some time. But it is obvious that the helmet was made in the 17th century. And it has an Arabic inscription on it, which translates roughly as: "Rejoice the faithful with the promise of help from Allah and an imminent victory." But there is also an image of the Archangel Michael. That says only that this helmet is of eastern, most likely Turkish work, and was presented to Mikhail Fedorovich, who then ordered the Christian symbolism to be added to it. In the documents of the Armory Order there is a mention of the gunsmith Nikita Davydov, who was gilding just at that time a certain helmet and received payment in kind for this.
And all this is proved only by the fact that just at the beginning of the 16th century, as well as in the 17th century, the success of Turkish weapons and the skill of Turkish gunsmiths made it very popular in Europe, and Russia was no exception. Helmets, yushmans and bahtters, helmets and sabers, as well as shields and firearms, saddles and a harness made in Turkey were obtained as trophies and bought during periods of reconciliation.
To be continued ...
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