A bright prince from Dark Ages

The Muscovites did not want to free Kostiantyn at any price, hoping to make use of his talents, and tried to persuade him to serve the Moscow tsar. Aware of being unable to be released, he took an oath of allegiance to the tsar. But when he once saw a faint chance to escape, he seized it. Naturally, Russian historiography could not forgive him this “sin” and, accordingly, attached to him the label of “God’s enemy and the sovereign’s traitor.”

Coming back from captivity, Kostiantyn was given again the hetman’s mace. This fact amply proves that he was highly valued as a general. In the next years the prince mostly fought against “the steppe.” Kostiantyn won a series of brilliant victories over the outnumbering forces of Tatars. The most resounding of them were one on the Lopushniansk field near Vyshnivets (April 28, 1512) and one near the river Olshanytsia, Kyiv region (February 6, 1527). Contemporaries note that in the former and the latter case he routed some 20,000-strong hordes, even though the army which Kostiantyn commanded was far smaller. These victories over the outnumbering enemy forces can be explained by the prince’s military talent and by the fact that he readily employed up-to-date military equipment. In particular, Kostiantyn was one of the first military commanders who began to make use of field artillery.

But what became one of the prince’s most brilliant victories was the Battle of Orsha, where he displayed an unsurpassed military talent. A new Muscovite-Lithuanian war began in 1512. The situation was critical. The Moscow troops notably outnumbered the Grand Duchy of Lithuania’s army. Ostrozky, as a grand hetman, was granted extraordinary, in fact dictatorial, powers. He was even given the right to mete out death penalty. Embarking on the expedition and being uncertain that he would manage to survive, the prince drew up a will.

Meanwhile, the Muscovite troops were stubbornly marching on. They seized Smolensk. They had every chance to rout a smaller-in-size army of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and occupy that country. If this had happened, the history of Central and Eastern European countries would have been somewhat different. The lands of Belarus, Lithuania, and, partly, Ukraine would have become part of Muscovy. Then they could have become part of “ethnic Russia,” as it happened with Novgorod, Briansk and Belarusian Smolensk lands.

It is Kostiantyn Ostrozky who saved the situation. On September 8, 1514, with about 30,000 men under his command, the prince engaged in a battle with the 80,000-strong Russian army on the river Kropyvnia near Orsha. Kostiantyn managed to disorganize the enemy army in this battle, resorting to various ruses of war.

The defeat of the Russian army near Orsha was the turning point of that war. The Muscovites were forced to drop the plans of a further offensive on the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and, instead, concentrated on defending the occupied territories.

The battles of Vyshnivets and Orsha, as well as other ones, brought fame to Kostiantyn Ostrozky. He was triumphantly received in Wilno and Krakow. The king even authorized him to use a red-wax seal – the prerogative of independent rulers at the time. Ostrozky remained hetman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania until he died. He became castellan of the Wilno Castle in 1511 and the voivode of Trotsk in 1522. These were considered as the highest offices in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania’s power hierarchy.

Thanks to the Grand Duke’s generous gifts for military exploits, Kostiantyn also managed to considerably expand his estate. He became one of the biggest landowners in the Duchy of Lithuania. Yet he would spend his fortune for military needs.

Ostrozky paid very much attention not only to military but also to religious and cultural matters. His efforts helped to considerably strengthen the position of the Orthodox Church in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and to found a lot of Orthodox churches and monasteries in Vilnius, Novogrudok, Dubno, Ostroh, Turiv, Mezhyrychi, Derman, and other towns and villages. Incidentally, Kostiantyn instructed that some temples be built in the Renaissance spirit – among them was the Epiphany Cathedral in Ostroh. The prince paid special attention to the Kyivan Cave Monastery. Judging by some fragmentary evidence, he attempted to establish cultural centers in large monasteries.

The abovementioned facts allow us to consider Kostiantyn Ostrozky as not only an outstanding figure in Ukrainian history. He was an international-scale figure. Moreover, he was a person owing to whom the history of Central and Eastern Europe “changed its course” to some extent. Even this alone makes it worthwhile to give a closer look at what he did.