In the 12th and 13th centuries, three new peoples reach a stage where they can begin influencing Russia. These three are the Germans, found in the extreme northwest, the Mongols to the South and East, and due west, the increasingly important principality of Lithuania.
Due to the ever present security concerns, concerns that help, in no small way, define the Russian political temperament, Russian rulers considered the Baltic tribes subjects of the crown. With the sacking of Constantinople in 1204 and the establishment of a Latin“patriarch” at the same time, Russia began to look north and west, rather than south. The west, being a difficult route due to the power of Poland, looked to the north, itself an important milestone in the development of the Russian idea. The forests, the north, the Germans, the knights: these will replace the Black Sea, the Greeks and the Dniper as the focus of Russian energies. As such, it has helped create a polarization in Slavic identity dealt with already: the “northern” idea of the forested, land based central monarchy, and that of the “libertarian” trading south, based on the Dnieper.
Nevertheless, the distinction drawn by no lesser lights than Doroshenko and Hurushevsky, can be overdrawn, for the republic of Novgorod, the closeness to the German merchant classes and the Hanseatic League will also create a northern trading climate. The Livonians are the advanced eastern guard of the papal church, a church that had heretofore made no secret about their desire to forcibly convert the Russian “schismatics.” The Livonians were not merely a knightly order, but were also a missionary one.
The Livonians as a people, however, rose in rebellion in 1198 against this armed missionary order of knights, at one time part of the crusading armies in the Levant, and reverted to paganism as a means of protest. Absolutely alien to their surroundings, whether Finnic, Germanic, Orthodox or pagan, pope Innocent III built the city of Riga as a base for his order. As a means of policing the area, Innocent also helped in the official creation of the Templars, and assisted their relocation to the Baltic area, partially now manned by Germans from Saxony. It was not long before war broke out between the nearest Orthodox city, Polotsk, and the German knights. It might be tempting to call the various orders of knights in the Baltic area “Roman Catholic Cossacks,” though without any of the traditions of libertarian freebooting that typified the latter. Of course, their strictly hierarchical order and their dependence on papal protection makes such a parallel inaccurate, however interesting.
The Knights, tempted by the growing wealth of Novgorod, began to harass her borders. But as much as the merchant city herself was divided, so was Russia herself. Without a strong personality in a capital city to repel such invaders, Russia was a large, but cumbersome and clumsy, opponent. The Germans were already building in stone, while the Russians, in their various municipal divisions, were still building in wood. This provided the knights an advantage in structure that easily made up for their lack of numbers. Polotsk itself was relatively weak. The Livonian Knights still functioned in the post-Carolingian order in western Europe: a weak monarchy permitting lesser knights to build castles to control a small area absolutely and autonomously. Theoretically dependent only on the pope, the knights quickly took Russian and Orthodox possessions on the Baltic, baptizing by force and building their stone fortresses for protection.
The purpose of the Livonian order, and those other Catholic military formations in the north had papal permission to deal with the still pagan tribes of the marshes of northern Russia. The last pagans in Europe, what was soon to be Lithuania resisted papal control, and thus, the knights were formed to deal with the situation. Undisciplined, the knights were based in Estonia, and quickly became a major variable in the political and military life of the extreme reaches of northeast Europe. The Livonians, overplaying their hand, were destroyed by an emerging Lithuania in 1236, and as such, merged with the Teutonic knights shortly afterwards. The developing centralization of the Lithuanian crown had no interest in a group of foreign knights claiming supremacy in their region.
Their members were given privileges equal to the common run of European nobility. The Teutons specifically, were formed by the merchants of Bremen and Lubeck as the military arm of their growing trading empire, though the knights acted as autonomously as any other powerful body. One of their many jobs, apart from forced conversion, guarding trading routes over land, and policing the Baltic region, was to encourage settlement of western Catholics in the area.
Within a short time, Pskov, the smaller version of Novgorod to the north, was threatened, and much of Russian territory was divided along feudal lines. At the initial Mongol invasions (to be dealt with later), the Teutons sought to press their advantage. St. Alexander Nevsky, younger son of Prince Yaroslav, and the great nephew of Andrew of Vladimir, was summoned by the Novgorodians to become their prince, and, at the very least, rescue them from the continuing pressures of the German Catholics. While initially a threat to the oligarchy of Novgorod, it was clear that he was a talented military leader. Holy Russia had a choice once it was clear that the Mongols were building an empire and were going to indirectly occupy most of Russia: Germany or Mongolia. Most Russians chose Mongolia.
The reasons for this are clear: the Mongol empire was based on indirect control and religious tolerance. Once Christian resistance was destroyed, the Mongols graciously tolerated the remnants. The Germans, however, were under papal orders to forcibly convert the Orthodox of the area. Furthermore, Novgorod had a history of trading with the Mongols around the Black Sea region, and therefore, it was reasonable to assume that the financial life of the Novgorodian elite might not be seriously disrupted after a war with German knights. At the same time, however, the papal tentacles were reaching into the Mongol camp as well, demanding that the Asiatics destroy Russia and raze their churches. What promises the curia offered the Mongols in return are obscure, but it is very easy to believe that Mongols, long trading with Greeks and the Genoese (forming a powerful alliance of sorts around the Black Sea region), were provided with greater access to Italian capital.
St. Alexander’s purpose was to pacify the north of Russia, neutralize the knights, and form a workable relationship with the Mongol Horde. St Alexander sought an understanding with a group of Asiatics he rightly though were interested in a trading income above religious uniformity, and sought to destroy those who were interested in the destruction of Russian life. The Novgorodians were quite willing to risk the enmity of the Mongols, however, and the Victory’s of St. Alexander against both the Teutons and Swedes were sufficient for them to seek to replace the great leader. Nevsky was forced to use violence against the ever-rapacious financial lords of the Patrimony.
Was St. Alexander right in fighting against Europeans in favor of the Mongols?
This issues is a common one, and is occasionally used against the Muscovites in their rise to power. In the Old Testament, the Prophet Jeremiah counseled submission to the Babylonians rather than suicidal, ethnic rebellion. St. Alexander and, later, the Muscovites, would do the same thing. The choice was clear: Russia will be occupied, therefore, who was preferable? The papal policies of the knights made such a matter clear.
I don’t understand the relation between Mongolia and Genoa? What is the western connection?
The Genoese merchants controlled much of the Black Sea trade. But as ususal with oligarchical governments, they do not care who controls an area, so long as they can make money off them. For example, the Venetians controlled Greek trade near the end of the Byzantine empire, and also made a fortune off the Crusaders, for the Venetians received a monopoly over transport to the Holy Land. However, when all the crusades failed and the Byzantine empire fell, Venice had no difficulty in opening trade with the Turks, which, truth be told, had been occurring for a long time prior to 1453. The Genoese were no different. The Mongols were excellent businessmen once they settled down, and the Horde’s power came from their substantial connection with Black Sea trade, and their reliance on Genoese shipping. The papacy also encouraged trade with the Black Sea Mongols (the Golden Horde, in this case), and therefore, one saw a Genoese/Mongol/papal alliance for a time. The purpose was to destroy Russian Orthodoxy, and then convert the Mongols. Orthodox Russia would be squashed between the knights, Poles, Lithuanians and Mongol forces. Therefore, Mongol power in the south was largely dependent on Italian credit and shipping.
Once the Black Sea Mongols turned to Islam and Russia slowly became influential in the Black Sea, they began to side with the Russians. Once Byzantium fell, Black Sea trade became more and more difficult for the Italians. Italian traders controlled European politics in the later middle ages and the early modern period. All modernizing monarchs were dependent on the Florentines or Venetians for credit. These bankers controlled and financed must of the trade between England, Flanders, France and the Netherlands. All overseas trade was in their hands, and this immense financial power cannot be separated from the development of specifically modern institutions and ideas. Modernity was built on banking and the secret control of Italian, then later German, English, Dutch and Jewish banks over the emerging modern economy and political balance of power. These are complicated arrangements, but one can make an argument that modernity was simply financial oligarchy writ large.