Ceremonial Sabre of Prince Dmitry Pozharsky

This ceremonial sabre belonged to Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Pozharsky (1578–1642), a national hero of the Time of Troubles. At the call of Kuzma Minin, the elected elder of Nizhny Novgorod, he led the Second Militia, which freed Moscow from the Poles in 1612. According to legend, the sabre was presented to the prince by grateful Muscovites. In 1613, at the coronation of Mikhail Romanov, Pozharsky was made a boyar and carried the orb in the solemn procession.

In 1647, after Pozharsky’s death, Prince Semyon Vasilyevich Prozorovsky gave the sabre to the Solovetsky Monastery. The relic was kept in its sacristy until 1923 and was mentioned among the monastery’s notable objects in all its descriptions; in 1924 it entered the Historical Museum.

The sabre is Moscow work of the 17th century. The hilt and scabbard are decorated in the Turkish style with gilded silver, plates of jasper and mother-of-pearl, turquoise, and small rubies and emeralds in gold settings. At the base of the blade is a mark in the form of a fantastic beast faintly resembling a lion. The sabre may have been made after a Turkish model by craftsmen of the Moscow Armoury Chamber. It is 105 cm long with the hilt; the blade is 84.7 cm long.