The fortuitous – some would say suspicious – unearthing last week of the tomb of Dmitry Donskoi, a fourteenth-century Grand Prince of Moscow, is a reminder not only of a long tradition of the handy “discovery” of relics at useful moments, but also of Vladimir Putin’s efforts to recast his rule and war in religious terms.
Donskoi is one of the state-building heroes of Russian history, the prince who struck the first serious blow against the Mongol-Tatar Golden Horde after a century of their rule.
In 1380, at Kulikovo field on the banks of the River Don, he broke the forces of the Golden Horde through hard fighting and cunning deception.
Shorts
It would take another century for Russia to truly be free of the Mongols – in 1382 they burned Moscow down. Nonetheless, he was elevated as a hero and in 1988 canonised as a Russian Orthodox saint.
