The fight against crusader aggression, results and significance. The struggle of northwestern Rus' against the aggression of the crusaders. Questions for self-control

Chapter III CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE BY THE CRUSADERS In two large campaigns of the 12th century. The crusaders evaded the goal of liberating Jerusalem from Muslim rule. In 1204, French and Italian knights, together with the Venetians, captured Constantinople and plundered it

In the 13th century The threat from the West is sharply increasing. This threat cannot be viewed narrowly and reduced to a few enemy attacks and Russian retaliatory actions. During the advance of Western European peoples, primarily the Germans, to the east, many Slavic tribes were almost wiped out from the face of the earth. This applies, first of all, to the Semi-Baltic Slavs - in the second half of the 12th century. many of these tribes were conquered and destroyed.

In 1201, the knights landed at the mouth of the Western Dvina. Back in 1198, the city of Riga was founded - a stronghold of the crusaders in the Baltic states. And soon the Order of the Swordsmen arose. With fire and sword, the knights began to convert pagans and schismatics, that is, Orthodox, to the Catholic faith. The lands of the ancestors of modern Estonians and Latvians (Estonians, Curonians, Semigallians, Latgalians) were quite quickly conquered by the knights.

And then another knightly force appeared. The Teutonic Order arose during the Crusades in Palestine, where soon the knights had absolutely nothing to do, and the Arabs gave no rest. The knights took advantage of the offer of the Lesser Poland prince Konrad of Mazowiecki to come to Poland and help the Poles in their fight against the Hungarians. However, the Poles soon realized that the knights posed primarily a danger to themselves, and drove the crusaders to the coast. Here they quickly destroyed the people of the Bolt language family - the Prussians, from whom little remained for history, and began to attack other tribes.

Having been defeated by the Lithuanians, the Order of the Swordsmen fell under the Teutonic protectorate. Orders - military-religious organizations - were a huge force. At the head of the order was a master, who ruled based on a college of commanders. In the cities there were governors - Vogts. The backbone of the orders were “brothers” - knights, experienced warriors clad in armor. They were served by “brothers” (almost literal translation from German) - less privileged and wealthy members of the “brotherhood”, who usually fought on foot during hostilities. The orders were constantly replenished with manpower - lovers of glory and booty flocked here from all over. Let's add to this religious fanaticism - the Pope himself blessed the knights to fight for the Catholic faith, issuing special bulls to the orders. This is the force that struck the lands of Eastern Europe at the beginning of the 13th century.

Representatives of the northern, Scandinavian branch of the Germanic peoples did not stand aside either. The Danes founded the strong fortress of Revel (Tallinn) in 1219 and captured the nearby territory. But the Swedes were even more active.

Already in the middle of the 12th century. Conflicts began between Novgorod and Sweden over the territory of modern Finland. In the southwest lived the Suomi tribe, who were called “Sum” in Rus'. The inland regions of southern Finland were inhabited by another large tribe - the Heme, or in Old Russian “em”. Novgorod took tribute from this tribe, watching with alarm the Swedish expansion into these lands, accompanied by the construction of fortresses, the introduction of Swedish legislation and the spread of Catholicism.

The Swedes also posed a direct military threat to the Russian lands. A whole series of Swedish campaigns culminated with the expedition of 1240, when the fleet of the Swedish king Erik Lespe under the command of Earl Birger invaded the Russian lands. In Novgorod, having received news of the advance of the Swedes, they decided that their goal was Ladoga. Alexander Yaroslavich quickly gathered troops and moved to Ladoga, but the Swedes were not there. The Swedes had other goals, which were soon reported to the prince by the elder of the Izhora tribe subordinate to Novgorod, Pelgusy. The Swedes wanted to settle at the mouth of the Neva, an extremely strategically important place in the Baltic states. It was planned to build a support fortress - the same as those built in Finland.

Warned by the elder, Alexander “in a small squad” went to the location of the Swedes. Another detachment of Novgorod warriors set off by water - along the Volkhov and further through Ladoga to the Neva. According to a number of historians, Alexander ordered his soldiers, who were sailing on ships, to go ashore at a considerable distance from the Swedish camp. After that, he quietly, through the forest, led his gathered army to the battlefield. An unexpected and violent attack decided the fate of the battle. Some of the Swedes rushed to the ships, others tried to cross to the other side of Izhora. Birger tried to organize resistance by forming those who remained in battle formations, but the ranks of the Swedes were crushed by the powerful onslaught of the Russians. The only thing the Swedes managed to do was to get to their ships, load the bodies of the dead onto them and hastily retreat. According to some historians (D. Fennell), the battle is “no more than another clash between Swedish troops and Novgorod defensive forces.” The battle, indeed, cannot be called grandiose, but, firstly, it must be taken into account that when it comes to losses, only noble men are listed in the chronicle; and secondly, we must take into account the enormous political and psychological resonance caused by this battle in the context of heavy defeats from the Mongols.

Alexander, despite the fact that after the battle he received the glorious and sonorous nickname “Nevsky,” spoiled relations with the Novgorodians and was forced to leave the city. But it was precisely at this time that the actions of the German crusaders intensified. Already in 1240 they took Izborsk by storm, and then, with the help of boyar treason, they took the main city - Pskov. A blow was also struck directly at Novgorod: the crusaders captured a significant part of the Votskaya Pyatina - one of the five regions of the Novgorod land. The strike was carried out from the area of ​​the Narva River. A new fortress was built on the site of the Koporye churchyard.

The Novgorodians had to turn again to Alexander, to his father - the Grand Duke of Vladimir - Yaroslav Vsevolodovich. He sent another son, Andrei, but the Novgorodians specifically asked for Alexander.

With an unexpected blow, Alexander took Koporye, destroying the fortress built by the Germans. The next goal is Pskov, which was taken into exile. From here the path to Izborsk and further to the “German land” already opened. The Russian commander managed to give the Germans battle in the same situation as his father. He defeated them back in 1234 on the ice of the Embach River. Alexander met the knights on the ice of Lake Peipus on April 5, 1242. The crusaders lined up in a triangle - “the great pig,” as the Russian chronicler called this formation order. The attacks of Russian soldiers from the flanks caused irreparable damage to the knightly system. And here the very nature of the native land completed the work begun. The ice, which had weakened by spring, began to crack and then collapse - the heavily armed knights drowned, and the retreating Russians were pursued and finished off.

No matter how hard some Western historians tried to downplay the significance of this battle, this is unlikely to be done. The victory on Lake Peipus stopped German expansion into Russian lands. It was woven into the general outline of the struggle of the Slavic and Baltic peoples against the onslaught of the orders and prepared their decisive defeats in the future.

The policy of the Russian princes cannot be reduced to one or two, albeit glorious, battles. This was a purposeful policy pursued by Yaroslav Vsevolodovich and Alexander Yaroslavich. Let’s not guess what the Russian princes were guided by: an intuitive sense of danger or a clear awareness of its scale. In any case, the Russian rulers, whether they sat in Vladimir or turned out to be Novgorod princes, resisted the Western threat in every possible way. Even Alexander’s marriage in 1239 to the daughter of the Polotsk prince Bryachislav was a strategic calculation: it was necessary to restrain the expansion of Lithuania. In 12201230s. The chronicle records frequent Lithuanian raids on Russian western lands.

The gradual transition of ancient Russian lands under the rule of Lithuania begins, especially intensified when the “autocracy” of Mindaugas was established in Lithuania (1238). The Lithuanians were stopped at the borders of Novgorod and Pskov. Here, at the direction of Prince Alexander, fortifications were built. However, from the fight against the Lithuanians, Alexander moved on to an alliance with them, directed against the knights. Be that as it may, neither the lands of North-Eastern Rus', nor Novgorod and Pskov entered the orbit of influence of Lithuania.

Simultaneously with the Tatar invasion, the Russian people in the 13th century had to wage a fierce struggle against the German and Swedish invaders. The lands of Northern Rus' and, in particular, Novgorod attracted invaders. They were not ruined by Batu, and Novgorod was famous for its wealth, since the most important trade route connecting Northern Europe with the countries of the East passed through it.

At the very beginning of the 13th century. In the Baltic states, German spiritual knightly orders became more active: the Order of the Sword Bearers (created in 1202) and the Teutonic Order (founded at the end of the 12th century). The military actions of these orders, aimed at capturing the Baltic states, met resistance from the local population, which found effective support from Novgorod, Polotsk and Pskov. However, the disunited and uncoordinated actions of individual tribes did not stop the onslaught on the East. By the end of 1220, German knights reached the Russian borders. Their forces multiplied with the unification in 1237 of the Order of the Sword and the Teutonic Order into the Livonian Order.

The armed confrontation with the Germans was due to a number of reasons. The conquest of the Baltic states created a threat to the sovereignty of the Russian states in the western part of Rus'. In addition, the Russian princes lost control over a number of lands and expensive tribute from the Baltic tribes. Finally, the Order’s actions destroyed trade and established political and economic ties in the region.

Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich and his son Alexander actively participated in this cruel and bloody war.

In agreement with the Order, the Swedes attempted to capture Novgorod. The coordinator of this double aggression was the Pope himself. In 1238, the Swedish military leader Eric Kartavy received the pope's blessing for a crusade against Russian lands. It was held under the slogan “Turn the Russians into true Christians.” However, the goals of the war were essentially different. The Swedes sought to seize the Votskaya, Izhora and Karelian lands in their favor.

In the summer of 1240, a 5,000-strong army led by Duke Birger approached the banks of the Neva on ships. Novgorod Prince Alexander Yaroslavich with his squad and militia made a lightning-fast transition from Novgorod and suddenly attacked the Swedes' camp. Turmoil began in the enemy camp. Alexander himself flew at the head of the Russian cavalry. Crashing into the midst of the Swedish troops, he struck their commander with a blow from his spear. The success was complete. Alexander received the honorary nickname Nevsky, and was later canonized.

Alexander's victory on the Neva was of great historical significance. She preserved for Rus' the shores of the Gulf of Finland, its trade routes to Western countries, and thereby made it easier for the Russian people in their long struggle against the Horde yoke.

But a little over a month later, a new danger approached Novgorod. German crusading knights and Danish knights launched a major offensive against Rus'. They captured Izborsk and Pskov, and in 1241 - Tesov and Koporye. An immediate threat loomed over Novgorod. Under these conditions, the Novgorod boyars asked Alexander Nevsky to once again lead the city’s armed forces. The squads of the Vladimir prince came to the aid of the Novgorodians, and a militia was convened. With these forces, in the winter of 1242, he moved to Pskov and liberated this ancient city. After this, Alexander began to look for a big battle to defeat the main forces of the Order.

The famous Battle of the Ice took place on April 5, 1242 on the ice of Lake Peipsi. The German army was built in the shape of a wedge, with the tip facing the enemy. The knights' tactics were to dismember the Russian army and then destroy it piece by piece. Anticipating this, Alexander built his army in such a way that the most powerful forces were on the flanks, and not in the center. At the decisive moment of the battle, when the German army wedged itself into the center of the Russian squads, it was the flank attack that made it possible to defeat the enemy. After the knights could not stand it and retreated, the ice cracked under the weight of their armor and they began to sink. The remnants of the knight's army fled, and Russian troops pursued them for about seven miles. The battle on the ice of Lake Peipus was of great importance for all of Rus'. The German aggressive advance to the east was stopped, Northern Rus' retained its independence.

The fight against the crusaders in the north-west of Rus' began at a time when the Russian land was under the yoke of the Mongol Yoke. The Swedish army appeared in the summer of 1240. Its goal was to capture the Neva and Ladoga in the lower reaches of the Volkhov. The invaders sailed on ships up the Neva. Alexander Yaroslavich was then reigning in Novgorod; his intelligence, having learned in advance about the Swedes’ campaign, warned the prince. And he prepared for the campaign of the Swedish army. Swedish military leaders from the mouth of Izhora sent a challenge to Alexander. The prince, without waiting for the complete gathering of people with the “small squad,” set out to meet the enemy. He approached Izhora, replenishing his squad with local militia. The prince's intelligence worked well, and Alexander knew all the Swede's movements. At dawn on July 15, he approached the Izhora camp of the invaders and attacked it on the move. Having lost many soldiers, the remnants of the Swedish army fled at night on their ships.

They failed to cut off Rus' from the Baltic Sea. After this brilliant victory, Alexander Yaroslavich received the nickname “Nevsky”. The attempts of the Swedish conquerors were continued by the German knights. In 1237, when Batukhan’s invasion of Rus' began, the knights joined forces - their two orders merged: Livonian and Teutonic. Crusaders from different European countries came to their aid. The Pope supported and blessed this entire army. In 1242, the crusaders captured Izborsk, a fortress on Pskov land. The knights, inspired by success, moved, ravaging Russian villages along the way, to Pskov itself. They burned its settlement, but attempts to take the city were unsuccessful. But even in those days there were traitors, with the help of whom the knights took possession of Pskov. Some of the townspeople who did not agree to live like this fled to Novgorod. The knights' appetite was heating up, they had already appeared 30-40 versts from Veliky Novgorod.

Alexander, the Novgorodians invited him to defend him, he, without remembering evil, hurried to Novgorod and immediately headed to the crusaders’ base, which he took by storm, and the Novgorodians saw captured knights on the streets of their city. This victory prevented a joint action by the Germans and Swedes against Rus'. In the winter days of the following year, Alexander and his brother Andrei lead the Novgorod and Vladimir-Suzdal regiments against the crusaders. Pskov was liberated. Alexander, not satisfied with the victory achieved, follows with his troops to the order’s border. And so on April 5, 1242, a battle took place on the ice of Lake Peipsi. During the battle, the crusaders suffered a crushing defeat. And the battle itself went down in history under the name “Battle of the Ice.” It was here that on April 5, 1242, the famous battle took place, called the Battle of the Ice. The knights formed a wedge formation but were attacked from the flanks. Russian archers caused confusion in the ranks of the surrounded German knights.

As a result, the Russians won a decisive victory. 400 knights alone were killed, in addition, 50 knights were captured. Russian soldiers furiously pursued the enemy who had fled. The victory on Lake Peipus was of great importance for the further history of both the Russian and other peoples of Eastern Europe. The Battle of Lake Peipsi put an end to the predatory advance to the east, which German rulers had carried out for centuries with the help of the German Empire and the papal curia. It was during these years that the foundations of the joint struggle of the Russian people and the Baltic peoples against centuries-old German and Swedish feudal expansion were strengthened. The Battle of the Ice also played a big role in the struggle for independence of the Lithuanian people.

The Curonians and Prussians rebelled against the German knights. The Tatar-Mongol invasion of Rus' deprived it of the opportunity to expel the German feudal lords from the Estonian and Latvian lands. The Livonian and Teutonic knights also occupied the lands between the Vistula and the Neman and, uniting, cut off Lithuania from the sea. Throughout the XIII century. The raids of the order's robbers into Rus' and Lithuania continued, but at the same time the knights repeatedly suffered severe defeats, for example, from the Russians at Rakvere (1268), and from the Lithuanians at Durbe (1260).

The fight against the aggression of the crusaders. The coast from the Vistula to the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea was inhabited by Slavic, Baltic (Lithuanian and Latvian) and Finno-Ugric (Estonians, Karelians, etc.) tribes. At the end of the 13th century and the beginning of the 13th centuries. The Baltic peoples are completing the process of decomposition of the primitive communal system and the formation of an early class society and statehood. These processes occurred most intensively among the Lithuanian tribes. The Russian lands (Novgorod and Polotsk) had a significant influence on their western neighbors, who did not yet have their own developed statehood and church institutions (the peoples of the Baltic states were pagans). The attack on Russian lands was part of the predatory doctrine of the German knighthood “Drang nach Osten” (onset to the East). In the 12th century. it began to seize lands belonging to the Slavs beyond the Oder and in the Baltic Pomerania. At the same time, an attack was carried out on the lands of the Baltic peoples. The Crusaders' invasion of the Baltic lands and North-Western Rus' was sanctioned by the Pope and German Emperor Frederick II. German, Danish, Norwegian knights and troops from other northern European countries also took part in the crusade. Knightly orders To conquer the lands of the Estonians and Latvians, the knightly Order of the Swordsmen was created in 1202 from the crusader detachments defeated in Asia Minor. Knights wore clothes with the image of a sword and cross. They pursued an aggressive policy under the slogan of Christianization: “Whoever does not want to be baptized must die.” Back in 1201, the knights landed at the mouth of the Western Dvina (Daugava) River and founded the city of Riga on the site of a Latvian settlement as a stronghold for the subjugation of the Baltic lands. In 1219, Danish knights captured part of the Baltic coast, founding the city of Revel (Tallinn) on the site of an Estonian settlement. In 1224, the crusaders took Yuryev (Tartu). To conquer the lands of Lithuania (Prussians) and southern Russian lands in 1226, the knights of the Teutonic Order, founded in 1198 in Syria during the Crusades, arrived. Knights members of the order wore white cloaks with a black cross on the left shoulder. In 1234, swordsmen were defeated by the Novgorod-Suzdal troops, and two years later by the Lithuanians and Semigallians. This forced the Crusaders to unite their forces. In 1237, the Swordsmen united with the Teutons, forming a branch of the Teutonic Order - the Livonian Order, named after the name of the territory inhabited by the tribe Liv, which was captured by the crusaders. Battle of the Neva. The offensive of the knights especially intensified due to the weakening of Rus', which was bleeding in the fight against the Mongol conquerors. In July 1240, Swedish feudal lords tried to take advantage of the difficult situation in Rus'. The Swedish fleet with troops on board entered the mouth of the Neva. Having climbed the Neva until the Izhora River flows into it, the knightly cavalry landed on the shore. The Swedes wanted to capture the city of Staraya Ladoga, and then Novgorod. Prince Alexander Yaroslavich, who was 20 years old at the time, and his squad quickly rushed to the landing site. “We are few,” he addressed his soldiers, “but God is not in power, but in truth.” Hiddenly approaching the Swedes' camp, Alexander and his warriors struck at them, and a small militia led by Novgorodian Misha cut off the Swedes' path along which they could escape to their ships. The Russian people nicknamed Alexander Yaroslavich Nevsky for his victory on the Neva. The significance of this victory is that it stopped Swedish aggression to the east for a long time and retained access to the Baltic coast for Russia. (Peter I, emphasizing Russia’s right to the Baltic coast, founded the Alexander Nevsky Monastery in the new capital on the site of the battle.)

Battle on the Ice. In the summer of the same 1240, the Livonian Order, as well as Danish and German knights, attacked Rus' and captured the city of Izborsk. Soon, due to the betrayal of the mayor Tverdila and part of the boyars, Pskov was taken (1241). Strife and strife led to the fact that Novgorod did not help its neighbors. And the struggle between the boyars and the prince in Novgorod itself ended with the expulsion of Alexander Nevsky from the city. Under these conditions, individual detachments of the crusaders found themselves 30 km from the walls of Novgorod. At the request of the veche, Alexander Nevsky returned to the city. Together with his squad, Alexander liberated Pskov, Izborsk and other captured cities with a sudden blow. Having received news that the main forces of the Order were coming towards him, Alexander Nevsky blocked the path of the knights, placing his troops on the ice of Lake Peipsi. The Russian prince showed himself to be an outstanding commander. The chronicler wrote about him: “We win everywhere, but we won’t win at all.” Alexander placed his troops under the cover of a steep bank on the ice of the lake, eliminating the possibility of enemy reconnaissance of his forces and depriving the enemy of freedom of maneuver. Considering the formation of the knights in a “pig” (in the form of a trapezoid with a sharp wedge in front, which was made up of heavily armed cavalry), Alexander Nevsky positioned his regiments in the form of a triangle, with the tip resting on the shore. Before the battle, some of the Russian soldiers were equipped with special hooks to pull knights off their horses. On April 5, 1242, a battle took place on the ice of Lake Peipsi, which became known as the Battle of the Ice. The knight's wedge pierced the center of the Russian position and buried itself in the shore. The flank attacks of the Russian regiments decided the outcome of the battle: like flares, they crushed the knightly “pig”. The knights, unable to withstand the blow, fled in panic. The Novgorodians drove them seven miles across the ice, which by spring had become weak in many places and was collapsing under the heavily armed soldiers. The Russians pursued the enemy, “flogged, rushing after him as if through the air,” the chronicler wrote. According to the Novgorod Chronicle, “400 Germans died in the battle, and 50 were taken prisoner” (German chronicles estimate the number of dead at 25 knights). The captured knights were marched in disgrace through the streets of Mister Veliky Novgorod. The significance of this victory is that the military power of the Livonian Order was weakened. The response to the Battle of the Ice was the growth of the liberation struggle in the Baltic states. However, relying on the help of the Roman Catholic Church, the knights at the end of the 13th century. captured a significant part of the Baltic lands.