Novgorod Republic - Foreign Relations

Foreign Relations

Novgorod struggled for centuries against Swedish, Danish, and German crusaders. During the Swedish-Novgorodian Wars, the Swedes invaded first Finland and then Karelia, lands where some of the population had on previous occasions paid tribute to Novgorod. The Germans, for their part, had been trying to conquer the Baltic region since the late 12th century. Novgorod had to go to war 26 times with Sweden and 11 times with the Livonian Brothers of the Sword. The German knights along with the Danish and Swedish feudal lords launched a series of uncoordinated attacks in 1240-1242. Their campaigns, however, failed after the Battle of the Neva (1240) and Battle on the Ice (1242). On August 12, 1323, the Treaty of Nöteborg, a treaty between Sweden and Novgorod regulating their border, was signed. This was the first time the border between what was to become Russia and Sweden-Finland was regulated.

The army of Novgorod successfully repelled subsequent attacks, as well. The Novgorod Republic managed to escape the horrors of the Mongol invasion, because the Mongol commanders probably did not want to get bogged down in the marshlands surrounding the city and turned back 100 km from Novgorod. In spite of never being formally conquered, the Republic began to pay tribute to the khans of the Golden Horde. In 1259, Mongol tax-collectors and census-takers arrived in the city leading to political disturbances in the city and forcing Alexander Nevsky to punish a number of town officials (he cut off their noses) for defying him as Grand Prince of Vladimir (soon to be the khan's tax-collector in Russia) and his Mongol overlords. In the 14th century, the raids of Novgorod's pirates (or ushkuiniki), who sowed fear as far as Kazan and Astrakhan, assisted Novgorod in their wars with Muscovy.