April 5, 1242
One of the most famous battles in Russian history took place on April 5, 1242. On the frozen surface of Lake Chudskoe (a large body of water between Russia and present-day Estonia, called Lake Peipus by Estonians) the Novgorodians soundly defeated the forces of a Livonian knightly order that was attempting to extend its influence into Rus. A young prince by the name of Alexander led the Novgorodian forces. Two years earlier, this prince had been given the surname Nevsky, after he defeated the Swedes on the banks of the Neva River. At the time, no one would have guessed that this young, energetic, clever, and ferocious knight would become one of the best-known figures in Russian history.
Even during his lifetime, Nevsky enjoyed great renown. At a time when Rus had suffered one defeat after another by the Mongol Horde, someone who had defeated first the Swedes and then the Livonians was bound to garner great respect. Furthermore, Alexander, who became a Grand Prince in 1252, was able to establish good relations with the Horde, and that immediately gave him great authority in the eyes of his subjects.
After Nevsky’s death, the church lost no time extolling the achievements of the prince who died having “performed great labors for the Russian land, for Novgorod and for Pskov, throughout his reign giving his life for the True Faith.” Soon he was declared a saint in the Orthodox Church.
It became a tradition for Russian princes and tsars to consider him their patron, to see in him a model protector of country and faith. The whims of fate allowed Nevsky’s popularity to endure after the 1917 Revolution as well, despite the fact that, during the first post-revolutionary years, any monarch was automatically anathema to the new authorities.
Ten years later, however, Stalin’s iron-fisted hold on power demanded a new ideological basis, and in the 1930s there was a gradual turn toward old imperial values. Officially, of course, nothing had changed. The revolutionary phrases, the communist ideology were still obligatory. But there were a few rulers from Russian history who could now be mentioned without invective.
Stalin suddenly needed not only revolutionary firebrands as national heroes, but rulers who consolidated their power by any means – that was what attracted him to Peter the Great and Ivan the Terrible. But there was another subtle shift in ideology. Internationalism and the idea of world revolution was relegated to the shadows, but Russian patriotism and the military exploits of princes who had throttled foreign enemies were brought to the forefront.
In essence, what appealed to Stalin about Alexander Nevsky was the same thing that had appealed to the bishops of the Orthodox Church many centuries ago. They had liked that this prince had halted the advance of a Catholic order into Russia and had refused to unite with the Pope in the struggle against the Mongols. For this they forgave him his cruelty to the Novgorodians, whom he forced to submit to the Mongols and to pay them tribute.
No one remembered how Nevsky had ingratiated himself before the khans of the Horde and how he had invited punitive detachments into Rus and, motivated by a desperate thirst for power, pitted them against his own brother. It was Nevsky who did not allow the unification of those princes who had attempted to continue their struggle against the Horde. At his request, troops led by the “Tsarevich” Nevryui [a Mongol prince] were sent into Rus, nipping resistance in the bud and destroying the enemies of Prince Alexander.
All this was inconsequential, barely notable in comparison with the great deed – the crushing of the Livonian Order on Lake Chudskoe.
In the 1930s, Nevsky turned out to be useful to Stalin. This prince had stopped the Livonians, and, as Fascism grew in Germany, citizens of the USSR were reminded that the members of the Livonian Order were German.
Nevsky had not been able to establish good relations with the Novgorodians. The freedom-loving, self-governing townspeople had thrown out the prince – he was too eager to interfere in their business. This, despite the fact that Alexander had saved the city from Swedish invasion. Two years later, the tables were turned, and the townspeople had to bow down before Alexander with a plea that he defend them against the Livonians. On Lake Chudskoe, Alexander clearly demonstrated that the interests of Novgorod were of little concern to him. He positioned the Novgorod militia at the center of his battle formation – lightly-armed foot soldiers, flanked by his cohort. The wedge-like formation with which the Livonians attacked – the renowned “pig’s snout” – hit the Novgorodians hard, and they began to retreat with losses. At that point, the Prince’s men attacked from the flank. It was an ingenious military move, said some. Others responded that Nevsky had just wanted to put the despised Novgorodians in harm’s way, rather than his own men.
Fifteen years later, Alexander again came to Novgorod with his cohort in order to force the townspeople to submit to a census being conducted by the Mongols. Everyone understood that a merciless collection of an exorbitant tribute would follow the census, and they were prepared to resist. Nevsky applied force, executing the most intractable boyars and cutting off the noses and ears of others. The free city was forced to bow down before the Horde. A desire for peace in Rus, said some. An effort to break a free city, responded others.
In the standoff between the ruthless prince and the independent city, Stalin’s sympathies naturally were with the prince. The cult of the commander-defender was restored. Sergei Eisenstein’s 1938 film put the finishing touches on Nevsky’s rehabilitation. In it, the marvelously handsome Nikolai Cherkasov (who also later played the lead in Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible) sallies forth to smash the Fascist, or rather the Livonian forces (it was hard to tell), outfitted in an embroidered white shirt and under the admiring gaze of the simple folk.
No historian can shatter the myths created by a cinematographer. However many attempts are made now to knock Nevsky from his pedestal, to show the contradictions in his personality, the cruelty and deception of his policies, or at least to question whether or not Nevsky’s actions represented the only correct course for the time, they are all thwarted by the fine figure of Cherkasov on the ice of Lake Chudskoe.
Perhaps people are comforted by the thought that Rus once had a remarkable, noble, and brave defender. But it is difficult to understand why – among the many rulers Russia has had – they choose to extol and adore one who beat some neighboring powers and ingratiated himself with others. The battle on Lake Chudskoe, it appears, was greatly exaggerated by generations of chroniclers and historians. It was just one of many clashes in the struggle for influence in the Baltic region between princes of Northern Rus and the Livonian Order. But then there is one difference: the music of Prokofiev, which swells as we hear Cherkasov triumphantly pronounce, “He who comes to Rus with a sword, will die by the sword.”
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