Rus’ as a Target of the Crusades: History and Historical Memory

The military conflicts between Rus’ian Prince Alexander Nevsky and the Catholic powers in the thirteenth century are commonly associated with crusading activities in the Baltic region. Yet it is striking that, although some crusader conquests of pagan territories extended into Rus’ian territories (e.g. in Novgorod and Polotsk Land), no contemporary sources include any declaration or justification of an explicitly anti-Rus’ian crusade at this time. In fact, the first clearly anti-Orthodox and anti-Rus’ian crusade in the region was the expedition of King Magnus of Sweden against Novgorod in 1348–1350. It was only in the fifteenth century when Rus’ian schismatics began to be considered as the main enemy of Catholic Christendom in the region. Simultaneously, the increasing authority of Muscovy began to pose a real threat to its western neighbours, namely Sweden in the north and Poland and Lithuania in the south. Indeed, it was early modern national history-writing that emphasised the crusading aspects of conflicts between the Rus’ and Catholics in the Middle Ages, depicting them as long-standing religious and cultural wars. That tradition was then confirmed and expanded by the professional historiography of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.