Mstislav Mstislavich Udaloi

(Mstislav Mstislavich the Daring). Died 1228. Prince of ancient Rus’, general, and statesman; son of Mstislav Rostislavich Khrabryi (the Brave).

Mstislav became prince of Tripol’e in 1193, of Torchesk in 1203, and of Toropets in 1209. He governed Novgorod from 1210 to 1215 and from 1216 to 1218, Galich from 1219 to 1227, and Torchesk in 1227 and 1228. He took part in the campaigns of the southern Russian princes against the Cuman in 1193 and 1203 and organized three successful campaigns into the Chudic lands in 1212 and 1214. In 1215, Mstislav drove Vsevolod Sviatoslavich Chermnyi from Kiev and set up Mstislav Romanovich as prince there. In 1210 he freed Torzhok, which had been seized by Vsevolod Bol’shoe Gnezdo, and in 1216 Mstislav’s militia, with the troops of allied princes, defeated the troops of the princes of Vladimir-Suzdal’ on the Lipitsa River. From 1219 he fought many wars against the Poles and Hungarians, as well as against the Galician and Volynian princes and boyars.

Mstislav was the initiator and one of the leaders of the campaign against the Mongol-Tatars in 1223. In the battle on the Kalka River his detachment was defeated by the Moʘgol-Tatars, and Mstislav himself, while trying to escape, destroyed the means of crossing the Dnieper, thereby placing the rest of the Russian troops in a difficult situation. In 1227 he gave his daughter Mariia in marriage to the Hungarian crown prince Andrew, to whom he later transferred rule of Galicia; he himself left to become prince of Torchesk.