Fire of Moscow (1571)

The Fire of Moscow (1571) occurred in May of that year when the-strong Crimean[1] and Turkish army (8,000 Crimean Tatars, 33,000 irregular Turks and 7,000 janissaries) led by the khan of Crimea Devlet I Giray, raided the city Moscow during the Russo–Crimean Wars. The khan set the suburbs on fire on 24 May and a sudden wind blew the flames into Moscow and the city went up in a conflagration.[2] According to Heinrich von Staden, a German in the service of Ivan the Terrible (he claimed to be a member of the Oprichnina)," the city, the palace, the Oprichnina palace, and the suburbs burned down completely in six hours. It was a great disaster because no one could escape."[3] People fled into stone churches to escape the flames, but the stone churches collapsed (either from the intensity of the fire or the pressure of the crowds.) People also jumped into the Moscow River to escape, where many drowned. The powder magazine of the Kremlin exploded and those hiding in the cellar there asphyxiated.[4] The tsar ordered the dead found on the streets to be thrown into the river, which overflowed its banks and flooded parts of the town. Jerome Horsey wrote that it took more than a year to clear away all the bodies.[5]

Fire of Moscow
Part of Russo-Crimean Wars
Date1571
Location
Moscow, Grand Duchy of Moscow
Result Most of Moscow destroyed by fire
Belligerents
Tsardom of Russia Crimean Khanate
 Ottoman Empire
Commanders and leaders
Devlet I Giray
Casualties and losses
At least 60,000

It was one of the most severe fires in the history of the city. Historians estimate the number of casualties of the fire from 60,000[6] to as many over 200,000 people. Foreigners visiting the city before and after the fire have described a noticeable decrease in the city population, and Ivan the Terrible avoided the city for several years after the fire due to the lack of suitable habitation for him and his entourage. The khan's attempt to repeat the raid in 1572 was repelled in the Battle of Molodi.[7]

References
  1. Robert Nisbet Bain, Slavonic Europe: Apolitical History of Poland and Russia from 1447 to 1796, (Cambridge University Press, 1908), 124.
  2. Isabel de Madariaga, Ivan the Terrible. First Tsar of Russia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 264.
  3. Heinrich von Staden, The Land and Government of Muscovy: A Sixteenth Century Account ed. and trans. Thomas Esper(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1967), 47; Michael C. Paul, "The Military Revolution in Russia 1550-1682," The Journal of Military History 68, no. 1 (Jan. 2004), 40.
  4. von Staden, "The Land and Government of Muscovy," 47; Jerome Horsey, "The Travels of Sir Jerome Horsey, Knight," in Russia at the Close of the Sixteenth Century. Edward A Bond, ed. (London: Haklyut Society, 1856), 164-166; Paul, "The Military Revolution in Russia," 40.
  5. Madariaga, Ivan the Terrible, 266.
  6. Hannibal Travis (2010). Genocide in the Middle East: The Ottoman Empire, Iraq, and Sudan. Carolina Academic Press. p. 171.
  7. Madariaga, Ivan the Terrible, 267, 277.


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