person
Mamai
also: Мамай
A 14th-century Tatar military commander of the Golden Horde, defeated at the Battle of Kulikovo (1380); survives in Russian idiom ("заткнуть за пояс Мамая", to tuck Mamai into one's belt) as a byword for utterly besting an opponent, which the piece's mock-chronicle joke takes literally.
Reading notes
- On August §31 Mamai
Reference to the Russian idiom "заткнуть за пояс Мамая" ("to tuck Mamai into one's belt"), meaning to utterly outdo or best someone -- alluding to the historical Tatar military commander Mamai, defeated at the Battle of Kulikovo (1380). The mock-chronicle "quotation" comically applies the idiom literally, as if two petty officials had physically bested the medieval warlord.