1240–1241 Votia campaign

Votia campaign

A force consisting of Germans and Estonians invaded Votia in the winter of 1240–1241. They occupied the city of Koporye and built a stone castle in order to secure the territory.

Further to the south, the villages of Tesov and Sablia were also captured, which only lay 30 versts (roughly 30 km) from Veliky Novgorod. It is reported in the Novgorod First Chronicle (NPL) that the Votians suffered greatly from the campaign.

The primary motive seems to have been that the Livonian Order regarded Votia as a pagan territory to be conquered and converted, unlike Novgorod, which they appeared to have no military or religious designs against. Nevertheless, the move was probably also done in order to cut off Novgorodian access to the southern side of the Gulf of Finland, which would severely impact its foreign trade. The 1241 treaty between bishop Henry of Ösel-Wiek and the Teutonic Order established legal and economic regulations in the newly acquired area, and mentions that campaign participants were given fiefdoms and other benefits in Votia.

According to Fonnesberg-Schmidt (2007), "Votia, the lands north-east of Lake Peipus" (...) "were tributary to Novgorod". On the other hand, Selart (2015) stated that "it is not clear how secure Novgorod's control was in Votia at the time (...) There are a number of references to Votia's dependence on Novgorod from the second half of the 13th century. It is nevertheless unknown how much of Votia fell within this dependency c. 1240."

There is no indication that Denmark was involved with this campaign. Moreover, on 28 March 1241, king Valdemar II died, causing a succession crisis in Denmark between his sons Eric and Abel over the question of who should succeed Valdemar. This situation made it impossible for the Danes to launch any kind of crusade in Estonia, let alone beyond Estonia. In theory, it is possible that some nominal vassals of Valdemar II took part in the Votia campaign, such as Dietrich von Kivel and Otto von Lüneburg, as they appeared to have interests around Koporye later, perhaps stemming from enfeoffments made to campaign participants during the brief takeover of Votia; but those would have been conducted under the authority of the Bishopric of Ösel–Wiek and the Teutonic Order, not the Danish king.

In late 1241, Aleksandr Yaroslavich of Suzdal returned to Novgorod, leading an army into Votia that defeated the Livonian troops, taking some captive while releasing others. The NPL tells that Aleksandr supposedly hanged "the Votian and Chud' traitors". The following year, 1242, the NPL narrates that "German" envoys travelled to Novgorod (when Aleksandr was absent), agreeing to withdraw from "the land of the Vod people, of Luga, Pleskov, and Lotygola".

Aftermath

Historian Alexander Basilevsky claimed that it had become clear to Novgorod, that the Crusaders, besides trade, were also interested in conquering new territories. As a response to the fall of Pskov, Alexander Nevsky reassumed power. The newly arrived prince took the Novgorodian city militia and set out for the occupied Votians, and retook the Livonian castle of Koporye. Danish and German prisoners from the fortress were sent to Novgorod. Nevsky, along with his brother, Prince Andrey of Suzdal, appeared outside of the Crusader-occupied Pskov and quickly stormed the city. The Novgorodians crossed the Velikaya and began burning and pillaging Livonian territory. In response, the Livonian coalition raised an army in Livonia and Estonia, under Hermann von Buxhoevden, and met the Novgorodians at the Battle on the Ice.

Interpretation

It is a matter of scholarly debate what the causes, purposes and effects of the Votia campaign were. According to an older, influential historiographic tradition, the Oeselian–Livonian–Votian alliance should be regarded as part of a wider, co-ordinated effort that deliberately sought to attack and conquer the Novgorod Republic and the rest of Kievan Rus' in order to convert its population from Eastern Orthodoxy to Catholicism. This tradition emerged from a local cult of veneration in Vladimir at the end of the 13th century, which centred on the role of Aleksandr Yaroslavich in the Novgorodian conflicts of the early 1240s. By the 15th century, Aleksandr was given the sobriquet "Nevsky" in reference to the supposed Neva battle, and by the 16th century, he was regarded as a heroic defender of Rus', as well as the Orthodox faith, and the progenitor of the Daniilovichi clan of Muscovy.

In 1928 and 1929, Finnish historians Jalmari Jaakkola and especially Gustav Donner expanded on this Nevskian hagiographic tradition by promoting the theory of co-ordination between various "Catholic" countries and military orders, organised by papal legate William of Modena, of having a well-prepared plan to conquer and convert all of Rus' to Catholicism in the 1230s and 1240s. In this vision, the 1240–1241 Votia campaign was only a small part of grand crusade against Orthodox "Russia", closely linked to the alleged Swedish July 1240 Neva campaign, the Dorpat–Livonian–Vladimirovich September 1240 Izborsk and Pskov campaign and the subsequent the April 1242 Battle of Lake Peipus (which Nevskian tradition had transformed into the so-called "Battle on the Ice"). Donner and Jaakkola argued the fact that these campaigns all occurred around the same time, and especially that Aleksandr Yaroslavich participated in all three, could not be a coincidence; therefore, all three events were linked together. Most Russian historians, as well as several western European historians, adopted Donner's theory of co-ordination.

By the late 20th century, Donner's theory of co-ordination was increasingly questioned by modern scholars, pointing out that 'there are only indirect arguments in favour of treating the three campaigns as a single interrelated war', 'nor does there seem to have been a papal 'master-plan' for a joint campaign against the Orthodox Russians.' Historians such as John Fennell (1983) and Evgeniya Nazarova (2001) concluded that if the Neva battle happened, it should be regarded as part of the Swedish–Novgorodian Wars for control of Finland and Karelia, rather than that the Swedes collaborated with the Danes and Germans in Livonia. Papal documents and treaties of the time only speak of conquering pagan lands and converting pagans to Catholicism.

Anti Selart (2001, 2015) and many other historians have argued that if the Votia campaign could be called a "crusade", as the older historiographic tradition would have it, it was merely 'a continuation of the process of Christianization already under way in Estonia. Its aim was to conquer the pagan territories and obtain rule over them by means of baptism. The campaign against Novgorod was launched because of the ties between Votia and Novgorod, but the crusade was not explicitly aimed against Christian Rus.' If the Votian campaign merely sought to acquire and Christianise pagan lands, this might have unintentionally provoked a Novgorodian reaction that the crusading coalition did not expect. The Livonian conquest of Votia might also have seriously harmed Novgorod's commercial interests by taking control of one of its nearby waterways, but whether that was one of its purposes, or consequences, is uncertain. Finally, Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt (2007) concluded that "the campaign against Izborsk and Pskov was a purely political undertaking which had nothing to do with conversion of pagans."