BOTN Story

First “Battle of the Nations” was held as soon as in Spring, 2010 at a magnificent Khotyn Fortress, Ukraine. Four countries took part: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Poland. After a huge success of the first festival, the status of World Championship was recognized by the worldwide community and it was decided to hold the championship annually. First overall champion of “Battle of the Nations”-2010 was Russian National Team, and no one has defeated them so far.

“Battle of the Nations” was held in Spring, 2011 at the same venue – Khotyn Fortress, Ukraine. 7 countries were able to join the Championship: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and
also Italy, Germany and Quebec, our first oversea participants. Taking into account a huge raise of interest from international teams it was decided to move “Battle of the Nations” in future years to venues in European Union for the convenience of majority of participating countries.

“Battle of the Nations” 2012 was held in Warsaw, Poland. Five more countries joined and we had 12 national teams in total: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Italy, Germany, Quebec, Austria, USA, Baltic States (United team of Latvia and Estonia), Denmark and Israel. A lot of attention was paid to the Championship and in the result we had a lot of international media outputs.

In 2013 “Battle of the Nations” continued to grow at the speed of light. It was held in Aueges-Mortes, France in May with a huge success. National Teams almost doubled in number and participants from 22 national teams attended the Championship: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Spain, Quebec, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Poland, the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia), Russia, UK, USA, Ukraine and joint team of Czech Republic and Slovakia. HMBIA cooperated with a number of major worldwide media, and after 2013 Championship BBC produced a documentary to broadcast in the UK. At this moment HMBIA was coordinating pioneers of the sport in 30 countries.

“Battle of the Nations” 2014 was held in Trogir, Croatia at UNESCO’s Kamerlengo fortress. This time 27 national teams took part in the Championship, eight new nations joined the movement: Mexico, Croatia, Finland, Switzerland, Moldova, Friesland, Serbia and Scotland. It was the year when women’s categories were introduced at the World Championship for the first time in history of our sport.

“Battle of the Nations” was held on 7-10th May in Prague, Czech Republic. In the middle of a national park (Petrin) we built a fully closed arena, our own small “Coliseum” as participants called it, and also introduced new categories: polearm duels and women’s mass battles. Twenty-seven national teams participated in that Championship with total numbers of 650 fighters and 2000 participants.

In 2016, “Battle of the Nations” bit its own record once again, this time there were 30 national teams with total number over 750 fighters and 2200 participants from 35 countries. Due to a huge number of fighters we had to extend the Championship program for 1 more day, and therefore “Battle of the Nations” 2016 was held during 5 full days of fights on 5-9th May.

The world’s number first medieval fighting tournament, “Battle of the Nations” 2017, was held at the historic, legendary bullfighting ring “La Monumental Arena” in Barcelona, Spain. It was the first major event at this venue in the last 7 years, and we had to re-build the inner part of the arena to comply with safety standards – it was a huge task, but we knew it was a smart investment of time and resources. We are proud that the sport of HMB had the honor of opening the doors of “La Monumental” arena for the first time in such a long time.  

“Battle of the Nations” 2018 was held on 3-6th May under the walls of beautiful Santa Severa castle.
About 800 fighters from 31 National Teams participated in 12 fighting categories. This year the program of the festival grown even more – a new experimental category of pro-fights was included to the Championship. Additionally, Women’s “Group Battles” category 3vs3 was modified to 5vs5.

This year’s tournament was special, as the Championship had 10 years anniversary in 2019. Here was everything! A record number of countries took part there, fights in traditional and new nominations, and most importantly, meetings with old friends and new acquaintances. What a fights were in the new mass categories 12 vs 12 and 30 vs 30! But is it worth talking about the battles of the banners in 150 vs 150?! Everybody was delighted – the participants and spectators, who filled the stands all the days of the Championship and sincerely and passionately supported the fighters. They in turn encouraged by the audience, showed amazing results.