Abstract
The Moldavian‑Ottoman skirmishes turned into a total war in the year 1476. The Ottoman sultan commanded all his vassals to take arms and join him in his campaign against Stephen the Great of Moldavia. The Crimean Tatars received the sultans’ command and set at once for Moldavia. After a looting raid in The Lower Country of Moldavia, the Tatar horde was intercepted by the Moldavian army, defeated and forced to clear the battlefield, leaving behind the slaves and the prey. This last episode is very unclear in the Romanian historiography of Stephen the Great times, because of the ambiguity of the preserved historical sources. Thus, we aimed at a critical analysis of all known sources about the theme, sources issued by several diplomats and chroniclers, as well as by the actors involved in the events: the Moldavian Prince Stephen the Great, and the Tatar mirza Eminek. After establishing a hierarchy of the sources, we tried to reconstruct the Moldavian‑Tatar conflict from the summer of 1476, considering the chronology and the succession of the events, the historical background and, of course, the two actors of the conflict: Eminek Mirza, and Stephen the Great of Moldavia.
Keywords
Balthasar of Piscia, Eminek Mirza, Mehmed II, Stephen the Great, Tatars
