Alexandre Nevski
Museum of the Kremlin, Moscow
More religious than warlike, prince de Novgorod, in great pageantry and holding up the cross, is offered to the devotion of faithful, like a guarantor of the Russian Church. Icon of the XVIIe century coming from the cathedral of the Archangel Saint-Michel
Alexandre NevskiIn XIIe and XIIIe centuries, the State of Kiev, already weakened by an economic decline and the fights between the city-principalities which compose it, must deal with two external dangers. In the west, the order Teutonique (German knights of Livonie) threatens the Russian cities of the Baltic States; their advance is however stopped on the ices of the lake Peïpous by prince Alexandre Nevski in 1242.
Coming from the east, the Mongols - or Tatars - of the Gold Horde devastate the worldwide between 1236 and 1240, and install for two centuries their domination on the north and the North-East of the Russian territory. However, the current grounds of the Ukraine and Bielorussia - the greatest part of what had been primitive Russia - escape the yoke tatar; they will be initially attached to Lithuania (XIIIe - XIVe century), then, with the latter, in Poland, from which they will share the destiny until the XVIIe century.
The Mongolian conquest brutally stops the demographic and economic rise of Russia: the cities were destroyed (except for Novgorod, which remains intact), the decimated populations, stopped traditional trade route.
The whole of the territory, subjected to the authority of a Mongolian governor, must pay a heavy tribute with the occupying administration, which very effectively organizes the collection of the tax and the stations. The various Russian princes - to the XII E century, the political center of gravity of the State had already moved towards the North-East, Vladimir-Souzdal having become most powerful of the principalities after the plundering of Kiev in 1169 - are reduced to going to beg in Saray, the capital tatare on the lower Volga, the iarlyk (the “charter”) which guarantees their hereditary possessions to them and the title of large-prince.
XIVe and XIVe centuriesAlong XIIIe and XIVe centuries, the fights to obtain the iarlyk oppose the principalities of Souzdal, Tver and Moscow. Only, at that time, the Church - the clergy is exempted of any load, and the Horde leaves freedom of worship - remains a leaven of unit, maintaining the feeling of a common cultural heritage.
In XIVe century, Moscow (whose first written mention date of 1147) ends up supplanting Souzdal (in one century, between 1300 and 1462, the Muscovite territory passed from 20 ' 000 km2 to 430 ' 000 km2). Strong its dynastic stability, its political and economic rise and the support of the Church, it feels ready to fight Tatars.
In September 1380, prince Dimitri Donskoï gains the battle of Koulikovo, over the edges of the Volga; if it remains without a future, this victory however breaks the myth of the invincibility of the Mongols and confers to princes de Moscou an immense prestige, that they will be able to make profitable politically.