Battle of the Neva

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  The Battle of the Neva was fought on the 15th of July 1240 beside the Neva River, near the settlement of Ust-Izhora. On one side stood the Novgorod Republic with its Karelian allies. On the other stood the Kingdom of Sweden, reportedly joined by Norwegian, Finnish and Tavastian forces. Only Russian sources mention the battle. It remains unclear whether it was a major invasion or a small-scale raid, yet in Russian historiography it grew into an event of massive scale and importance. Why would Swedish ships sail so far east? What did the Russian chroniclers actually record? And how much of the famous version can be trusted?

  371324

• 2. Crusade and Furs

  ›

  Pope Honorius III, who led the Church from 1216 to 1227, received a stream of petitions about new Baltic crusades. Most concerned Prussia and Livonia. One report came from the Swedish Archbishop, who described difficulties with the Swedish mission in Finland. Honorius answered only by declaring an embargo on trade with pagans in the region. It is not known whether the Swedes asked for more help at that moment.

  In 1237, the Swedes received papal authorization to launch a crusade. Probably in 1238 or 1239, they carried out a successful campaign into Tavastia in Finland. Later historians call it the Second Swedish Crusade. In 1240, new campaigns began in the easternmost part of the Baltic region, and the Swedes pushed further east.

  The Karelians had been allies and tributaries of Novgorod since the mid-12th century. Novgorod also held a monopoly over the Karelian fur trade, so a Swedish advance in that direction meant a clash. Meeting it was a Novgorodian army led by Prince Alexander Yaroslavich.

  231832425

• 3. The Chronicle Account

  ›

  The Novgorod First Chronicle, from the 14th century, is the earliest source to describe the fighting. It reports that Prince Alexander Yaroslavich, then 19 years old, heard of the advancing Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish and Tavastian fleets. He quickly gathered his small army and local men. His aim was to meet the enemy before it reached Lake Ladoga.

  The chronicle opens its story of the invasion with a line of scene-setting: "Swedes came with a great army, and Norwegians and Finns and Tavastians with ships in great numbers". The invaders, it says, hoped to take Ladoga, then Novgorod and all of its lands. The chronicler credits the victory to divine protection and to Saint Sophia.

  A Sunday, the same day that 630 holy fathers once met at Chalcedon, is how the chronicle dates the clash. It says the Swedish leader, called Spiridon, was killed, and that "some claimed that even the bishop was slain". The Swedes loaded two ships with the bodies of high-born men and let them sail out to sea. The unnumbered rest were thrown into a pit and buried. The chronicle adds that "that same night they fled, without waiting for the Monday light, with shame".

  Konstantin Lugotinitch, Gyuryata Pinyashchinich, Namest, and Drochilo Nezdylov, a tanner's son, are the Novgorodians the chronicle names among the dead. From the people of Ladoga, it counts "20 men or less, God knows". Alexander, it says, returned home with his men all well.

  A 16th-century version of the battle added a great deal of detail and stretched the conflict to biblical proportions. It kept the earlier outline of events intact.

  711325

• 4. Alexander Nevsky

  ›

  A 15th-century chronicler gave Prince Alexander Yaroslavich the epithet Nevsky, meaning "of Neva". The name fixed the battle to the prince for later generations.

  In 1242, two years after the Neva, Alexander stalled an invasion by the Teutonic Order and the Bishopric of Dorpat in the Battle on the Ice. Despite these victories, Novgorodian forces made no advances further west into Finland or Estonia. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Baltic, no one wrote down a battle at all.

  132524

• 5. Sweden in Turmoil

  ›

  King Johan Sverkersson died in 1222, and Sweden slid into what was in effect a civil war that lasted until 1248. In that year, Birger Jarl managed to seize power. The quarrel pitted the folkung party, which wanted to keep the old tribal structure, against a king assisted by the church.

  The folkungs came mainly from Uppland. They stoutly resisted the centralization of power, the taxation of the Swedes of Uppland, and church privileges.

  Norway added a second front of tension. Ever since the Norwegians' infamous Värmland expedition in 1225, official Sweden had been on the brink of war with its neighbor. Relations improved only after the Treaty of Lödöse in 1249, forged by the newly empowered Birger Jarl.

  Out of this unrest, one recent book has drawn a bold theory about who sent the ships east.

  614151619

• 6. The Folkung Theory

  ›

  A recent book aimed at a wide readership proposes that the Swedish expedition grew indirectly from a papal letter sent to the Archbishop of Uppsala. The letter eloquently called for a crusade, not against Novgorod, but against the Tavastians in Finland, who had allegedly started hostilities against the church.

  The folkungs, frustrated by a king in a defunct position, may have seen a chance to regain part of their Viking Age glory. The king may not have been willing or able to act. Mostly free of royal interference, the folkungs could raise an army of their own and gather volunteers from Norway. They could also win help from Thomas, the independent Bishop of Finland, who had to worry constantly about attacks from the east.

  In this telling, the mixed force headed not for Tavastia but for the more lucrative Neva, and there met its fate at the hands of Alexander. In 1241, in the possible aftermath, the King of Norway approached his Swedish counterpart for peace talks. He was turned down at the time.

  17182236

• 7. Doubts and Dating

  ›

  The Pskov Chronicle and related chronicles do not mention the Norwegians, Finns, or Tavastians in their entries about the Swedish incursion at the Neva. The scholar John H. Lind also finds it unlikely that the Norwegians could have joined, because King Haakon Haakonsson of Norway was busy suppressing an uprising led by Skule Bårdsson. That casts doubt on the Finns and Tavastians too. Lind suggests the list of enemies may have been inflated by copying names from later entries, because of the great symbolic weight the battle acquired.

  Some recent research goes further and fundamentally questions the battle's importance. It sees an ordinary border skirmish that was exaggerated for political purposes. That reading would also explain why the battle is missing from Swedish and other western sources.

  The date of the Swedish crusade to Tavastia is itself controversial. It was traditionally placed in 1249-1250, based on the chronology of Erikskrönikan. Many scholars now think 1238-1239 more likely. That would suggest the Swedish forces at the Neva were led by Birger Magnusson, later known as Birger Jarl, eight years before his appointment as jarl.

  32013219

• 8. Aftermath and Legacy

  ›

  The first known Swedish military expedition against Novgorod after the Neva came in 1256. By then the folkungs had fallen, peace with Norway had been secured, and Finland had been conquered. If the battle had any long-term consequence, it was in Sweden's determination to take over Finland first before trying to proceed further east.

  In 2007, the scholar Janet L. B. Martin described Novgorod and Sweden as competitors for dominance over the Finnic tribes north of Novgorod's lands. They also competed for control of access to the Gulf of Finland. She saw the Swedish attack on the Neva River as one of a long series of hostile encounters over these issues. It was "not, as is sometimes asserted, a full-scale campaign timed to take advantage of the Russians' adversity and aimed at conquering the entire Novgorodian realm". Even so, she notes, Alexander's victory was celebrated.

  243256