Daniil Shchenya

Prince Daniil Vasiliyevich Shchenya (Russian: Даниил Васильевич Щеня) (? - no later than 1519) was a leading Russian military leader during the reigns of Ivan III and Vasili III.

Schenya was a Gediminid princeling whose great grandfather was the son of Patrikas. He settled in Moscow and married a sister of the grand duke. In 1489, the prince and his army of 64,000 men besieged and captured the city of Kirov (then known as Khlynov), the inhabitants of which had often pillaged the northern lands of Russia. All citizens of Khlynov were taken to different Muscovite towns; the fittest of them were moved to Moscow.

Shchenya took an active part in the war against the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and border disputes and skirmishes, which had preceded the war. In 1493, Shchenya and his relative Prince Vasili Ivanovich Patrikeyev (also known as Vassian Kosoy) captured the city of Vyazma and transferred its princes to Moscow. During the Russo-Swedish War, 1496-1499 his army devastated Finland. In 1499, under the leadership of Prince Daniil Kholmsky, Shchenya defeated the Grand Hetman of Lithuania Konstantin Ostrozhsky at the Battle of Vedrosha and took him prisoner.

In 1501, however, Shchenya's army was crushed near Izborsk by Wolter von Plettenberg, master of the Livonian Order and ally of the Lithuanian ruler Aleksandras II. After the fall of Ivan Yuriyevich Patrikeyev and his son-in-law Semeon Ivanovich Ryapolovsky, Shchenya took the post of the second voyevoda of Moscow.

In 1508, he and Dmitriy Shemyachich unsuccessfully sieged Orsha. That same year Shchenya became the first voyevoda of Moscow after the fall of Daniil Kholmsky. In 1514 Shchenya aptly crowned his military career by capturing Smolensk from the Lithuanians.