ALEXANDER NEVSKII

ALEXANDER NEVSKII, prince, St. (ca. 1220–1263). He became Prince of Novgorod in his youth and led the city to a series of striking victories over the crusading order of Teutonic Knights, marking thereby the eastern limits of German expansion. His defeat of the Knights on the frozen waters of Lake Peipus in 1242 won him great renown, and his victory over the Swedes invading from the north on the banks of the frozen river Neva earned him the surname Nevskii.

Alexander is remembered in the Russian Church as a saint (canonized 1380), less for his exploits as a military hero, however, than as an intercessor for the Russian lands at the court of the Mongol Khans. In 1250 Alexander was appointed Grand Prince of Russia by the Khan, a title that entailed the supervision of taxation and the suppression of revolt. His nobility and true heroism lay in his patient endurance of continual humiliation, inflicted on him by resentful countrymen and overbearing masters. This he suffered for the sake of Russia’s eventual liberation and the safeguarding of her Christian faith, the first of which he saw could not be achieved in his own lifetime. Exhausted by no less than three extended trips to the Khan’s court in Mongolia seeking clemency for rebellious Russians, he died so journeying in 1263. The same year saw the establishment of one of his sons, Daniel (q.v.), as prince of the small city of Moscow, the beginning of the royal line that would accomplish Russia’s freedom.