Alexander Nevsky and the Battle on the Ice

[Larry1]

No doubt many of you have heard of Alexander Nevsky, or the famous film bearing his name.  Here is the main reason Alexander Nevsky is famous. On this week* in the year 1242 Prince Alexander Nevsky of Novgorod led his troops into battle against the Teutonic Knights who had invaded and occupied several nearby cities and were headed to Novgorod to conquer it.

The Teutonic Knights were more or less crusaders. This branch of the Knights was the Livonian Order, operating from the territory that is now Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, plus land to the South and Southwest of there. They intended to conquer territory and impose Catholicism on the slavic people in the areas near Pskov and Novgorod.

Prince Alexander gathered his forces and moved to oppose the Knights. The two sides met in battle on the frozen lake. A Russian chronicle written not long after the battle averred that, "In fierce battle came the crash of breaking lances and the ringing of sword on sword, until the ice turned red with the blood of men, and then the frozen lake did seem to give way... and in the sky appeared God's hosts of heavenly troops, aiding our Prince to victory."

The writer of the chronicle did not see the battle but heard this story from someone who said he was there and saw it. Many historians doubt the legend that the Teutonic Knights fell through the ice. But there is no doubt that Prince Alexander Nevsky defeated the Knights and stopped them from taking Novgorod, which at that time was a very important Russian city.

During the late 1930's Sergei Eisenstein made a film entitled "Alexander Nevsky", commemorating the victory. At that time the Soviet Union was concerned about war with Nazi Germany. One of the reasons Stalin approved the film is that it showed Russians defeating invading Germans. Not long after the film was shown in theaters, however, the USSR and Nazi Germany signed the Molotov-Ribbontrip Nonaggression Pact, and Stalin ordered the film removed from theaters.  It was shown again after the Nazis invaded the USSR in 1941.

The film had a score written by the composer Sergei Prokofiev.  Here is a short excerpt from the film:



I didn't make the conversion from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar.

[Boethius]

The better half tells me the ice in the movie is sand.  He also had a neighbour who fought at Sevastopol.  He had a medal for the defence of Sevastopol, which was the most prestigious medal to have, as only a fistful of survivors had that medal.


The neighbour told the better half that they used to watch the Nevsky film every chance they had during the siege.  He said it raised their morale.

[mendeleyev]

Larry, thank you for your PM regarding this topic as it is of great interest to me.

Something has come up regarding Belarus that has preoccupied my attention, not to mention trying to find some time for celebrating Easter. I will chime in on some thoughts soon.