Mamai
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Mamai (or Mamay) was a powerful military commander of Golden Horde in the 1370s, who resided in the western part of this nomadic state, which is now the Southern Ukrainian Steppes and the Crimean Peninsula. He split apart from Khans of the Golden Horde, trying to establish his own state.
Mamai, holding military rank of tumenbashy (tyomnik, тёмник in Russian) — commander of 10,000 troops, loosely equivalent to a modern general — was not a member of the ruling Mongol dynasty (i.e., a member of Chingiz Khan's family). In 1378–1380 he tried to force Russians to pay annual tribute to him instead of the Golden Horde.
After being badly defeated by Russians at theBattle of Kulikovo (1380), Mamai was assassinated in Kaffa (Crimea) by the Genoese, who could not forgive the total waste of a military unit of Genoese crossbowmen who were slaughtered by the Russians.
One of his sons later escaped to Lithuania, and, serving Grand Prince Vytautas the Great, received the title of Prince of Glina with multiple estates around the modern site of Poltava (Ukraine) in the early 1400s. At the very beginning of sixteenth century, this family (Slavicized and baptized by that time) moved on to Muscovite service. Eventually, in the 1520s, Princess Elena Glinskay became wife of Vasily III, Grand Prince of Moscow, and mother of Ivan the Terrible.
See also
- Mamayev Kurgan, a hill and a memorial complex in present-day Volgograd
de:Mamai
