On 3 March 1067 three sons of Yaroslav the Wise defeated Prince Vseslav of Polotsk in deep snow on the Nemiga River near Minsk; the Primary Chronicle tells of a fierce slaughter and Vseslav's flight. Its account of the campaign is the first written mention of Minsk. On 3 March 1776 American marines landed on New Providence.
A prince of Polotsk takes Novgorod
Vseslav, son of Bryachislav, was prince of Polotsk. Under the year 6572, in Samuel Cross's translation of the Primary Chronicle, "Vseslav began hostilities", and the chronicle's entry for 6575 opens with his campaign and the capture of Novgorod.1
The Novgorod First Chronicle puts the fall of the city a year earlier, under 6574: Vseslav came and took Novgorod "съ женами и съ дѣтми" ("with the women and the children"; our translation), took down the bells of St Sophia, and the chronicler adds: "о велика бяше бѣда въ часъ тыи !" ("oh, great was the misfortune in that hour!"; our translation). According to the Encyclopedia of the History of Ukraine, he had also attacked Pskov, and it was this attack on Pskov and Novgorod that brought the sons of Yaroslav against him.2
Minsk taken
The three brothers, Iziaslav, Sviatoslav and Vsevolod, gathered their warriors and set out against Vseslav in the depth of winter, the Pushkin House translation speaking of a hard frost. The Encyclopedia of the History of Ukraine calls them the three eldest sons of Yaroslav the Wise and the princes of Kiev, Chernigov and Pereiaslavl.3
They came to Minsk, whose people shut themselves up in the town; the brothers took it and cut down the men. What befell the women and children depends on the translation: Cross has them "sold ... into slavery", the Pushkin House translation has them taken captive, and the Encyclopedia of the History of Ukraine says they were handed out to the princes' retainers. According to the same encyclopedia, the siege began at the end of February 1067 and Vseslav's army came too late to help the town.4
This report is the first written mention of Minsk. Its site is debated: a number of Belarusian scholars, the encyclopedia notes, place the old town 16 kilometers west of the later castle, on the Menka River, where the Institute of History of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences has been excavating.5
Battle in the snow
Vseslav came out against them, and the two armies met on the Nemiga "on March 3, with heavy snow on the ground", as Cross renders it; the Laurentian and Hypatian texts both give the third day of March. Cross goes on, "and the carnage was severe"; many fell, the brothers prevailed and Vseslav fled. The Novgorod First Chronicle has a single sentence: "Побѣдиша Всеслава на Немизѣ" ("They defeated Vseslav on the Nemiga"; our translation). None of these chronicles gives the size of the armies or the number of the dead.6
The chronicles count years from the creation of the world. The Laurentian and Hypatian texts put the battle under 6575, which the editors of the Laurentian volume and Cross equate with 1067. The Radziwiłł and Academy copies, the Laurentian editors note, head the entry 6574.7
The Nemiga was a small tributary of the Svislach in the Dnieper basin. Most scholars identify it with a stream that now flows through modern Minsk in an underground culvert, the commentary to the Pushkin House edition notes, adding that the battle on its banks, as the chronicle and the Lay of Igor's Campaign depict it, is hard to square with so small a stream.8
Sheaves of heads
The battle passed into poetry. The Lay of Igor's Campaign was written at the end of the twelfth century according to the title page of its first edition, and probably then according to the Encyclopedia of the History of Ukraine. That edition, printed in Moscow in 1800, gives the Nemiga these lines: "На Немизѣ снопы стелютъ головами, молотятъ чепи харалужными, на тоцѣ животъ кладутъ, вѣютъ душу отъ тѣла. Немизѣ кровави брезѣ не бологомъ бяхуть посѣяни, посѣяни костьми Рускихъ сыновъ." ("On the Nemiga they spread sheaves of heads, thresh with flails of steel, lay life on the threshing floor, winnow the soul from the body. The bloody banks of the Nemiga were not sown with good, sown with the bones of the sons of Rus"; our translation).9
In a footnote the 1800 editors took the Nemiga for the Niemen, citing Tatishchev. The Encyclopedia of the History of Ukraine explains the lines by the losses of the campaign, which it calls so striking that the poem still recalled them.10
An oath on the cross
Afterwards Iziaslav, Sviatoslav and Vsevolod kissed the cross and sent word to Vseslav: "Come to us; we will do you no harm" (our translation). The Laurentian text and Cross date this to 10 July. In the 1923 edition of the Hypatian text the month is June and only the abbreviation mark of the day's numeral is printed, with no numeral legible under it, while a variant copy noted there reads July. The Pushkin House edition prints 10 June in its Old Russian text and 10 July in its translation, and the Encyclopedia of the History of Ukraine gives 10 July.11
Trusting the oath, Vseslav crossed the Dnieper by boat. Iziaslav went into the tent ahead of him, and there, "contrary to their oath", Cross writes, the brothers took Vseslav captive "at Rsha, near Smolensk". The Novgorod First Chronicle also records his seizure at Rsha that year. The Encyclopedia of the History of Ukraine places the meeting on the Orsha River near Smolensk. Iziaslav brought Vseslav to Kiev and put him and his two sons in a dungeon.12
Freed by Kiev
In the entry for 6576 (1068 in Cross), the Polovtsians beat the three brothers on the Alta. Back in Kiev, the townsmen held an assembly and asked Iziaslav for arms and horses to fight again; he paid no heed. Part of the crowd went to the prison, and on 15 September the people freed Vseslav from his dungeon and set him up in the midst of the prince's palace, while Iziaslav fled to Poland. The Novgorod First Chronicle also says that the people of Kiev cut Vseslav out of his prison that year and that Iziaslav fled to the Poles. According to the Encyclopedia of the History of Ukraine, Vseslav was then proclaimed prince of Kiev.13
The chronicler saw God's hand in it, since Iziaslav had broken his oath on the cross. On "the day of the Elevation" Vseslav prayed "Oh true Cross, inasmuch as I have believed in thee, free me from this abyss!", in Cross's translation. According to the Primary Chronicle in Cross's translation, he stayed in Kiev seven months. When Iziaslav came back with Polish help, Vseslav fled to Polotsk.14
Also on 3 March
1776: a Continental squadron under Commodore Esek Hopkins landed a force on New Providence in the Bahamas. Hopkins reported "landing two hundred marines, under the command of Captain Nicholas, and fifty sailors, under the command of Lieutenant Weaver"; Captain Samuel Nicholas wrote of 270 men. That day the defenders of Fort Montagu fired on them, spiked the guns and withdrew, and the Americans took the fort. That night the governor sent off the powder, 150 barrels by Hopkins's count; the next morning Nicholas marched into the town, received the keys and took Fort Nassau, all, as he wrote, "without firing a single shot from our side".15
