The Novgorod Republic (Russian: Новгородская республика, romanized: Novgorodskaya respublika), formally known as Lord Novgorod the Great, was a city-state that existed from the 12th to 15th centuries in northwestern Russia, stretching from the Gulf of Finland in the west to the Ural Mountains in the east. Its capital was the city of Novgorod. The republic prospered as the easternmost trading post of the Hanseatic League, and its people were much influenced by the culture of the Byzantines, with the Novgorod school of icon painting producing many fine works. For much of its history, Novgorod was the center of Russian art and culture.
Novgorod formally won its independence in 1136 after the Novgorodians deposed their prince and the Novgorod veche began to elect and dismiss princes at its own will. By the 13th century, the prince's power had greatly diminished. The veche also elected the posadnik, the chief executive of the city, as well as the archbishop of Novgorod, subject to approval by the Russian metropolitan. In addition, the tysyatsky, originally the military commander, was elected by the veche to serve the interests of the common people, eventually taking on judicial and commercial functions. Novgorodian nobles known as boyars dominated the veche, and the offices of posadnik and tysyatsky remained in the hands of boyar families. The boyars also gave funding to the ushkuyniki, who contributed to the expansion of Novgorod's trade and colonies in the Russian North.
From the mid-13th century, the Novgorodian throne remained in the hands of the grand princes of Vladimir, a title that, by the 14th century, had been inherited by the prince of Moscow. As Moscow grew in power in the 15th century, Novgorod began to lose its autonomy. In a 1471 peace treaty with Moscow following the Battle of Shelon, Novgorod pledged allegiance to Moscow, with its system of government temporarily left intact. The end of the republic came in 1478, when Ivan III dismantled the veche and imposed his direct rule on Novgorod as part of his campaign to annex the other Russian states.
Name
The state was called Novgorod and Novgorod the Great (Russian: Великий Новгород, romanized: Veliky Novgorod), with the form Sovereign Lord Novgorod the Great (Russian: Государь Господин Великий Новгород, romanized: Gosudar' Gospodin Veliky Novgorod) becoming common in the 15th century. The term Novgorod the Great was also used to refer to all Novgorodians who enjoyed full rights. Novgorod land and Novgorod volost usually referred to the land belonging to Novgorod.
The term Novgorod Republic (Russian: Новгородская республика, romanized: Novgorodskaya respublika) itself is a much later term, although the polity was described as a republic as early as in the beginning of the 16th century.
History
Origins
The area of Novgorod was populated by various East Slavic tribes that were constantly at war with one another for supremacy. According to the 12th-century Primary Chronicle, in 859, the Varangians began to levy tribute on these tribes, who chased out the Varangians three years later. Due to their inability to govern and maintain peace, the tribes requested the return of the Varangians. In 862, the Varangian brothers Rurik, Sineus and Truvor were each "invited" to reign in Novgorod, Beloozero, and Izborsk, respectively, in what is now northwestern Russia. As a result, Novgorod is traditionally viewed as the birthplace of the Russian monarchy in Russian historiography.
The Primary Chronicle states that when Oleg the Wise conquered Kiev in 882, which traditionally marks the beginning of Kievan Rus', he ordered Novgorod to pay tribute to the Varangian princes in Kiev. Although the Chronicle states that "Oleg set himself up as prince in Kiev, and declared that it should be the mother of Russian cities," this account differs from what most Latin and Greek sources report for the next century. For example, in De Administrando Imperio, Novgorod is still presented as the capital of the Rus', while Kiev is mentioned only as an outpost.
The "Russian–Scandinavian cultural symbiosis" became prevalent following the establishment of the state of Rus'. The Novgorodians were the first to reach the regions between the Arctic Ocean and Lake Onega. Even though there is no definitive account of the precise timing of their arrival at the northern rivers that flowed into the Arctic, there are chronicles which mention that one expedition reached the Pechora River in 1032, and trading was established as early as 1096 with the tribes of Yugra. The Chronicle mentions Novgorodians traveling "beyond the portage" as early as 1079. They also traveled to Pomorye, the "summer [southern] coast" of the "Cold [White] Sea" in search of furs as well as fish and salt. The historian George Lantzeff remarked that "in the beginning of Russian history, two Russian principalities, Novgorod and Rostov-Suzdal, were engaged in exploring, conquering, exploiting, and colonizing the area west of the Ural Mountains".
From the 11th century, the Novgorodians asserted greater control over the determination of their rules, and rejected a politically dependent relationship to Kiev. During this period, Novgorod developed its unique form of government, which consisted of the posadnichestvo (mayoralty) and the veche (popular assembly).
12th century
The chronicles state that the Novgorodians paid tribute to the grand prince of Kiev by 1113. Some time after this, the administration of the principality seemed to have matured. The Novgorodian tysyatsky and posadniki appointed boyars from the cities and collected revenues for administration in the territories it held. A charter from the 1130s mentioned 30 administrative posts in the territory of Novgorod, where revenues were collected regularly and sent as a tithe to the Novgorod bishop. Throughout the 12th century, Novgorod utilized the Baltic–Volga–Caspian trade route, not only for trading but also for bringing food from the fertile Oka region to their city.
On a number of occasions, the Novgorodian nobles refused to accept the prince sent from Kiev. This struggle culminated in 1136, when the Novgorodians revolted and dismissed their prince Vsevolod Mstislavich. Over the next century and half, the Novgorodians were able to invite in and dismiss a number of princes, and although the rule of princes was not completely eliminated, their power had been greatly reduced, to the point that they were simply hired officials. Princely power was already non-hereditary, and as a result, the prince was a symbol of the political union of Novgorod with the principality from which they were invited. However, these invitations or dismissals were often based on who was the dominant prince.
The Novgorodians sought to maintain the balance of power by alternating their invitations to princes from different regional centers, including the principalities of Rostov-Suzdal (later Vladimir-Suzdal) and Kiev, whose prince remained the "eldest" among the Rurikids until 1169. Although the beginning of the republican period is traditionally considered to be 1136, the development of republican institutions in Novgorod was a much more complicated process that began earlier and ended much later. According to the historian John L. I. Fennell: "But it must not be imagined that Novgorod in the twelfth century and the first forty years of the thirteenth was in any way close to becoming a republic. Strong rulers could always oblige the city to accept their nominees... The fact is that Novgorod was always militarily vulnerable and whatever troops it could itself provide were never sufficient or competent enough to defend it".
Rostov-Suzdal comprised the territory of the important Oka region and lands along the vital Sheksna River. This river lay in the Northern Volga tributary region. Whoever controlled the river was able to block food supplies causing a famine in Novgorod. Perhaps due to these fears, Novgorod led a failed invasion of Suzdal in 1134. They tried again and succeeded in 1149. Alternatively, Novgorod, in a bid to appease Suzdal, accepted some Suzdalians as rulers of Novgorod. Despite these events, Suzdal still blocked off trade to Novgorod twice and intercepted Novgorod's tributes. Novgorod gradually became a major trade power in the Baltic following the establishment of permanent foreign trade centers. Traders from Gotland arrived and founded the Gothic court around the turn of the 12th century. Around the late 12th or early 13th century, the Peterhof was established.
By 1156, Novgorod had won the right to choose its own bishop. In 1165, the bishop was elevated to archiepiscopal status. The election of the bishop was carried out by the veche, and thus, Novgorod had an almost independent religious administration, which allowed it to enter its golden age. The chronicles describe the first election of the bishop of Novgorod by the veche:
Archbishop Niphont died... that same year all the townspeople gathered together and decided to appoint as their bishop Arkadii, a man chosen by God; and all the people went and took him out of the Monastery of the Holy Virgin [in the presence of Prince] Mstislav Iur'evich, all the clergy of Holy Wisdom, all the town priests, and all the abbots and monks; and they installed him, entrusting him with the bishopric in the metropolitan in the court of Holy Wisdom, until there should be a metropolitan in Russia and then he should go be consecrated.
13th century
In 1228, there was a failed Novgorodian campaign against the Tavastians in present-day southern Finland, as reported in the Novgorod First Chronicle (NPL). The Novgorodian troops were disaffected by prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, a quarrel broke out within the army and the troops refused to fight. In the same year, Yaroslav tried to militarily overrun the rebellious town of Pskov (possibly because its throne was vacant), but the Pskovians closed their gates in time and denied him entry. Yaroslav retreated to Novgorod, claimed no ill will towards Pskov, but raised another army supposedly for the purpose of attacking Riga (a stronghold of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword). But the Pskovians distrusted him and allied with Riga instead, while the troop raising caused food prices in Novgorod to spike, stoking civil discontent against prince Yaroslav as well; opposition to the Suzdalian dynasty's power grew amongst citizens of both Pskov and Novgorod. As they rejected support for his campaign against Riga, suspecting a ploy to seize Pskov along the way after the previous failed attempt, Yaroslav was forced to abandon his plans and disband his expensive army. When a bad harvest exacerbated the famine, the Novogorodians rose in revolt against the prince, who fled with his family and supporters to Pereslavl-Zalessky. With the Suzdalian princely threat gone, the Pskovians sent the Livonian auxiliaries home, while the veche elected Michael of Chernigov as Novgorod's new knyaz in 1230. The NPL notes that in subsequent years, Pskov remained allied with Riga and the Rigans, and later Dorpat (modern Tartu) and Odenpäh (modern Otepää). Meanwhile, Yaroslav Vladimirovich, a son of the previous Pskovian prince Vladimir Mstislavich of Pskov sought to leverage his family ties with the bishops Hermann of Dorpat and Albert of Riga (died 1229) to gain his father's throne.
The famine in Novgorod continued, and in 1230, another popular revolt erupted against supporters of the brand new prince Michael of Chernigov, including tysiatskii Boris Negochevich. The desperate Novgorodian people asked for Yaroslav of Suzdal to return, which he did at the end of 1230, but the famine got even worse in spring 1231, until German merchants sailing from overseas were able to import sufficient amounts of grain and flour to relieve the Republic's hunger. In autumn 1231, Yaroslav took Novgorodian troops on a campaign to Chernigov against his rival Michael. In 1232, there were anti-Yaroslav rebellions in Novgorod and Pskov, but only the latter was successful in chasing the Suzdalians out of town.
In 1233, Boris Negochevich and other Novgorodian nobles joined forces with Yaroslav Vladimirovich (pretender-prince of Pskov) and some Sword Brothers, occupying Izborsk in 1233, but they were soon expelled by the Pskovian army, while the pretender was captured, handed over to Yaroslav of Suzdal and imprisoned in Pereslavl-Zalessky. In 1234, Yaroslav of Suzdal campaigned against the bishopric of Dorpat. The 1234 peace agreement was based on that of 1224; it did not involve any territorial issues, but only a prisoner exchange and Dorpat's promise to stop supporting factions in Pskov and Novgorod that opposed Yaroslav of Suzdal. Yaroslav went to Kiev in 1235, leaving his 15- or 16-year-old son Aleksandr Yaroslavich behind in Novgorod.
Although the Northern Crusades were aimed at pagan Balts and Finns, rather than Orthodox Russians, several unsuccessful attempts were made to persuade Novgorod to convert to Catholicism after the capture of Tartu. Novgorod also fought against the Crusaders for economic reasons, to protect their monopoly of the Karelian fur trade. In Livonia, although the missionaries and Crusaders had attempted to establish peaceful relations with Novgorod, Livonian missionary and Crusade activity in Estonia caused conflicts with Novgorod, which had also attempted to subjugate, raid and convert the pagan Estonians. The Estonians would also sometimes ally with the Russians against the Crusaders, since the eastern Baltic missions also constituted a threat to Russian interests and the tributary peoples.