Saint Alexander Nevsky

Grand duke of Vladimir (r. 1252-1263)

• Born: c. 1220
• Birthplace: Northern Pereiaslavl, Vladimir-Suzdal (now in Russia)
• Died: November 14, 1263
• Place of death: Gorodets, Vladimir-Suzdal (now in Russia)

Alexander strengthened the Republic of Novgorod by defeating Swedish, Livonian, and German invaders. By skillful diplomacy and appeasement policies, he also secured limited autonomy for the entire Grand Duchy of Vladimir-Suzdal from the Tatars of the Golden Horde.

Early Life

Alexander Nevsky (NYAYF-skee), nephew of Grand Prince Yuri Vsevolodovich (1189-1238), was born to Prince Yaroslav II Vsevolodovich of Northern Pereiaslavl, a principality located in Suzdal. Alexander, who had seven paternal uncles and seven brothers, spent his youth in Northern Pereiaslavl and then in Novgorod. Yaroslav was hired as a Novgorodian service prince in 1222, mainly to defend the merchant-dominated society from foreign attackers. In 1236, Yaroslav left to assume the princely throne at Kiev, compelling the Novgorodians to accept his sixteen-year-old son, Alexander, as successor in the republic. Yaroslav held Kiev but a short time before he was ousted by Michael of Chernigov. Meanwhile, young Alexander attempted to build a stronger government and a wider territorial base for Novgorod.

Life's Work

Alexander's rule in Novgorod began in 1236. Three years later he married Alexandra, princess of Polotsk, a principality between Smolensk and Lithuania. In the 1250', Lithuania began its absorption of the old lands of Kievan Russia, including part of Polotsk, held in special regard for Nevsky because of his wife's family there. Eventually all the lands of Polotsk would become part of Lithuania. Nevertheless, Alexander was able to repel Lithuanian attempts to seize Novgorod and its tributary principality of Pskov. In response to Lithuanian raids on Smolensk and Kamno in 1239, he erected a number of defensive forts in the south along the Shelon River. Conflict erupted with Lithuania in 1245, when troops invaded areas to the north and south of Novgorod. Alexander's armies from Novgorod, Tver, Pskov, and Dmitrov stopped the invasions, causing the deaths of eight Lithuanian princes and the Russian recapture of booty and lands. Three years later another Lithuanian invasion near Smolensk was stopped, but one of Alexander's brothers was killed in the warfare.

Alexander's leadership in the defense of Novgorod and the other Russian lands from incursions of Swedes and Germans is equally well known. Some sources portray him as a hero, the savior of Orthodoxy. Twice Alexander was engaged in defense against Swedes; one of these battles took place along the Neva River on July 15, 1240, and explains the sobriquet “Nevsky.” Alexander's mounted brigade surprised the encamped Swedes, while infantry attacked Swedish ships in dock to prevent arrival of reinforcements. These battles (or skirmishes, as one authority avers) were part of the continuing struggle between Russians and Scandinavians for control of the Finnish lands and not, as some early sources attest, part of a papal plan of Germans, Danes, and Swedes to absorb Novgorod at a time when it was weakened by Tatar rule.

Describing the defense against German Teutonic Knights (the Order of Swordbearers of Livonia) is more complicated because of German support both in Pskov and in Novgorod itself. The nature of such support and the reasons for it are unclear, but the prince of Pskov and the mayor allowed Germans entry to the city. The German party in Novgorod influenced Nevsky to leave the city with his family for northern Pereiaslavl after returning from the encounters with the Swedes. German invasions, however, prompted the assembly to recall Alexander on his own terms. On his return, several German partisans in the city were executed. Alexander's military forces then drove the Germans from the north of the city and retook Pskov, punishing those who had aided the knights. The stage was set for the celebrated “battle on the ice” against German and Estonian forces near Lake Peipus.

Alexander's tactic was to lure the German forces toward the shoreline by feigning a flight, enabling the cavalry detachments to descend from the flanks on the forces in disarray; it is said that five hundred Germans died in the battle. The victory on April 5, 1242, was followed by a march of fifty German and Estonian knights as prisoners through the streets of Pskov, after which the order signed a treaty ceding all of its conquered lands. Stories of Nevsky's battles assume epic, even biblical, proportions in the romantic accounts of contemporaries. The difference between the numbers killed and taken prisoner in Russian and Estonian accounts is immense, and some modern authorities are convinced that the battles involved far fewer combatants than the Russian chroniclers attest.

Family rivalries played a major part of Alexander's mature life. When Yaroslav died in 1246, Alexander's uncle Sviatoslav Vsevolodovich became grand prince and confirmed the patrimonies that Yaroslav had assigned to his sons. Within a year, Alexander's brother Andrew overthrew his uncle and seized the grand princely throne, which required the approval of the Tatars. Andrew and Alexander went to Saray to debate the issue, but Mongolian ruler Batu Khan (d. 1255) dispatched them to distant Karakorum for a final decision. Andrew, though younger than Alexander, was awarded the title, and Alexander was given the rule of Kiev and the lands of southern Russia. They returned to Russia in 1249, and Andrew remained the grand prince for three more years.

When troubles arose between Andrew and the Golden Horde, a Tatar army drove Andrew from his capital, Vladimir, on the Kliazma River. Andrew and his brother Yaroslav defended the region as best they could but in the end were forced to flee: Andrew to Sweden and Yaroslav to Pskov. Andrew and his father-in-law, Daniel of Galicia-Volhynia (1202-1264), had conspired against the Tatars, who discovered the plot. The Tatars conferred with Alexander and then attacked, before Andrew and Daniel could coordinate their plans. Thus, Alexander became grand prince. The brothers later made peace; Andrew was given Nizhni Novgorod and Suzdal in 1255, and Yaroslav was later provided with Tver.

The rule of Alexander (1252-1263) as grand duke or prince of Vladimir was marked by continued accommodation to the Golden Horde, strong support for Russian Orthodoxy vis-à-vis the Roman Church, and a firm policy against opposition within his realm. His chief support came from Metropolitan Kirill, who crowned him in Vladimir, later buried him with full honors, and probably commissioned the biography of Alexander. Kirill encouraged his conciliation of the Tatars and established an Orthodox bishopric in Saray itself. Kirill gained much for the Orthodox Church from the Golden Horde: no taxation, no conscription, and no inclusion in the census. He persuaded Alexander to reject the blandishments from the Roman pope and strengthened the historical image of Alexander as the savior of the Orthodox Church from the West.

Throughout his reign, Alexander continued to defend the frontiers against incursions of Germans, Lithuanians, and Swedes. In 1253, Russian forces under Alexander's son Dmitry seized Tartu from the Teutonic Knights. When Swedes built a fortress on the Narva River in 1256, Alexander himself led a Novgorodian army that frightened them away, after which there were no more Swedish incursions for nearly twenty-five years. In 1262, the king of Lithuania switched allegiances from Rome and the Teutonic Knights to Suzdal, whereupon a combined Russian-Lithuanian-Polotskian army attacked the German post at Tartu. The murder of the Lithuanian king later that year ended the promising alliance.

Relations with the Mongol or Tatar Southeast were different. Rejecting Andrew's idea of uniting all against the Golden Horde, Alexander chose to submit for the sake of limited independence. Novgorod was the trouble spot in this pro-Tatar policy, since antagonism to the Golden Horde was keen there. When Alexander sent his twelve-year-old son Vasily (1240-1271) to rule for him, Novgorodians replaced him with his uncle Yaroslav. Alexander marched on the city, forcing his brother to flee and threatening to punish the lesser boyars, the merchants, and the mayor. Only the intercession of the archbishop prevented violence.

New troubles arose in 1257, when the Tatars sent census takers and tax collectors to the city. Young Vasily supported the resistance, and when the Tatars and Alexander arrived, he fled to Pskov, only to be captured and imprisoned by his father. Vasily's supporters were either executed or mutilated. The angry Tatars then summoned Alexander and his two brothers Yaroslav and Andrew to Saray. Alexander, his troops, and Tatar officials went to Novgorod in 1260 in order to enforce the census and tax. Again, the city divided between the greater boyars who supported the grand prince and other citizens who chose resistance. The grand prince's troops easily overcame the rebels, and Alexander, with Tatars by his side, rode through the streets of the city. Novgorod had submitted.

The famed rising of 1262 against Tatar rule came not in Novgorod, however, but in Rostov, Vladimir, Suzdal, and Yaroslavl, occasioned by Tatar demands for slaves and conscripts for the Persian War. The princely class did not support the rebels, and the movement took on the character of a general popular uprising. Alexander was again summoned to Saray to explain the behavior of his subjects. Did he save Russians from reprisals or simply explain his inability to control his subjects? The sources are unclear, but Mongol ruler Berke Khan (d. 1267) kept him there for the winter of 1262-1263, when he became ill. Alexander left in the spring, but instead of going to Vladimir, he went north to Gorodets, in Andrew's patrimony. There, he took monastic vows and died about six months later, on November 14, 1263. His body was taken for burial in Vladimir eleven days later.

The timing of Alexander's death has led to speculation that he was poisoned by the Golden Horde, since his father and younger brother Yaroslav also died after leaving the Tatar capital. In any case, his last mission was at least successful because the Tatars launched no punitive expedition northward and ceased the demands for conscripts.

Significance

Alexander Nevsky remains an intriguing figure in Russian medieval history. Ironically regarded as a hero even by the Soviet state, he had openly submitted to the mighty Golden Horde. For somewhat similar reasons, medieval churchmen and modern statesmen magnify Nevsky's role in withstanding the challenges of the West. Yet some analysts discount the danger of a major Western invasion, noting that Alexander's defense of the borders was little more than what previous princes had done. The Orthodox Church, ever conscious of its rivalry with Rome, saw security in the conciliatory policies of Alexander, but Tatar policies were always tolerant of foreign religions. Was Alexander's delicate treatment of Saray responsible for the paucity of Tatar reprisals against Russians, or were the Tatars simply too busy with the military threats from Persia? Clearly, Alexander's defeat of his brothers signaled the end of effective Russian resistance to the Golden Horde for more than a century. Also, Andrew's policy of resistance can be seen as unrealistic when one recalls that Daniel died without the Western Crusade that he and Andrew had expected.

Alexander's accession to the grand princely throne in 1252 may mark the real beginnings of the “Tatar Yoke,” since there was no further resistance to this administration for nearly 125 years. Furthermore, the accession of Alexander to the principality of Kiev a few years earlier discontinued the political links between northern and southern Russia, since the prince never went to Kiev; its lands were absorbed by the expansionist state of Lithuania.

After Alexander's death, his sons were either too weak (Vasily) or too young (Dmitry, Andrew, and Daniel) to succeed him. News of Alexander's death prompted Novgorodians to replace his son Dmitry with Yaroslav of Tver. Berke Khan chose Yaroslav over the older Andrew to be grand prince. Although Alexander had failed to change the method of lateral succession, his son Daniel became the first permanent ruler of Moscow, founding a junior princely line that would produce the first czar, Ivan IV Vasilyevich (r. 1547-1584), also known as Ivan the Terrible, who presided over the canonization of Alexander in 1547; later, Czar Peter I (Peter the Great; r. 1696-1725) moved Alexander's body to St. Petersburg to rest in a monastery dedicated to him at the end of Nevsky Prospekt.

No paintings of Alexander have survived, but his helmet is prominently displayed in the Moscow Armory. Residing in the Leningrad Hermitage is an enormous silver tomb for Nevsky constructed by master craftsmen in 1750-1753 in Petersburg. A cathedral in Sofia, Bulgaria, was named after Alexander in honor of Russian support during the nineteenth century. Sergei Eisenstein's film about Alexander Nevsky was released in 1938, and during World War IIJoseph Stalin established the Order of Alexander Nevsky to honor Red Army soldiers.

Princes of Vladimir, 1169-1331

Reign

• Ruler

1169-1174

• Andrei I Bogolyubsky

1175-1176

• Michael

1176-1212

• Vsevolod III

1212-1217

• Yuri II

1217-1218

• Constantin

1218-1238

• Yuri II (restored)

1238-1246

• Yaroslav II

1240

• Mongol conquest

1246-1247

• Svyatoslav III

1248-1249

• Michael

1249-1252

• Andrei II

1252-1263

• Saint Alexander Nevsky

1264-1271

• Yaroslav III of Tver

1272-1276

• Vasily

1276-1281

• Dmitry

1281-1283

• Andrei III

1283-1294

• Dmitry (restored)

1294-1304

• Andrei III (restored)

1304-1319

• Saint Michael of Tver

1319-1326

• Yuri III of Moscow

1326-1327

• Alexander II of Tver

1328-1331

• Alexander III

Bibliography

Dukes, Paul. A History of Russia: Medieval, Modern, Contemporary, circa 882-1996. 3d ed. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1998. Part 1 of this historical study introduces medieval Russia and the construction and then collapse of Kiev (882-1240). Extensive bibliography and an index.

Fennell, John. The Crisis of Medieval Russia, 1200-1304. New York: Longman, 1983. A critical account of Alexander and his betrayal of his brothers Andrew and Yaroslav. Bibliography, index.

Halperin, Charles J. Russia and the Golden Horde: The Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985. The author is sympathetic to Alexander’s policy of appeasement and its results. The text also minimizes the magnitude of Novgorod’s resistance to the Tatar tax collectors. Maps, bibliography, index.

Hartog, Leo de. Russia and the Mongol Yoke: The History of the Russian Principalities and the Golden Horde, 1221-1502. New York: British Academic Press, 1996. Explores the Mongolian beginnings of the Russian Empire and the Golden Horde. Covers the Mongolian invasion and subsequent dominance of Russia, the rise of Moscow and Lithuania, and more. Includes a genealogy of principal persons, maps, a bibliography, and index.

Manz, Beatrice F., ed. Central Asia in Historical Perspective. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1994. Discusses the historical legacy of the Mongols and the Tatars in Central Asia. Bibliography, index.

Michell, Robert, and Nevill Forbes, trans. The Chronicle of Novgorod, 1016-1471. New York: AMS Press, 1970. An indispensable source, first published in 1914, for the study of Alexander’s role in Novgorod but written from the biased outlook of medieval churchmen. The author of the chronicle is unknown.

Paszkiewicz, Henryk. The Rise of Moscow’s Power. Translated by P. S. Falla. Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1983. In a full account, the author argues that Alexander was poisoned by the Tatars because he had outlived his usefulness and was, in any case, too popular. Bibliography, index.

Presniakov, A. E. The Formation of the Great Russian State: A Study of Russian History in the Thirteenth to Fourteenth Centuries. Translated by A. E. Moorhouse. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970. First published in Russian in 1918, this seminal work analyzes the disintegration of Russian political affairs. The author stresses Alexander’s family relationships and the centrifugal trends, inevitable despite the presence of charismatic leadership.

Riasanovsky, Nicholas V. “Lord Novgorod the Great” and “The Mongols in Russia.” In A History of Russia. 6th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. A historical text with two particularly relevant chapters, one on Alexander and the other on the Mongol influence in Russian history. Bibliography, index.

Vernadsky, George. The Mongols and Russia. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1953. The classic account by the late dean of American scholars of medieval Russia. It should be read in conjunction with the revisionist version by Fennell.

Zenkovsky, Serge A., ed. “Tale of the Life and Courage of the Pious and Great Prince Alexander.” In Medieval Russia’s Epics, Chronicles, and Tales. Rev. ed. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1974. The basic account that depicts Alexander as the savior of the land from the West. Its omissions are as revealing as the hagiography.