Russian Combat Knives of XIV–XVII Centuries: Classification Error and Authentic Artefacts of the Kremlin Armoury Collection

Abstract

The article explores a set of historical arms which were published with illustrations as Russian combat knives of XIV–XVII centuries in “Historical description of the clothes and weapons of Russian troops, with illustrations” (1841) by Viskovatov A.V. The author manages to confirm the fact that all six depicted knives match real pieces of short blade arms that are still kept in the Kremlin Armoury. The author compares illustrations from Viskovatov’s publication with information from archival documents and attribution of these artifacts based on their modern scientific classification and data from written sources. However, it becomes clear that none of the artifacts can be attributed as Russian combat knives or named with terms proposed by Viskovatov, i.e. a boot knife (zasapozhniy knife), a belt knife (zapoyasniy knife) and a saidak knife (podsaidashniy knife). The author examines how these terms appeared in the inventories of the Kremlin Armoury in the XIX century and highlights a set of Russian knives which were attributed by Yakovlev L.P. in 1862 as saidak knives, boot knives and belt knives. This led to further investigation of how these knives appeared in the Kremlin Armoury collection and their morphological features. The results allow the author to clarify their attribution and to conclude that terms belt knife and boot knife are artificial. The author also presents the only extant saidak knife (XVII century) in the Kremlin Armoury collection.

Keywords

• russian knifes
• combat knife
• podsaidashniy knife
• zasapozhniy knife
• zapoyasniy knife