Why do people in the West hate Alexander Nevsky?
April 18 is an important date in the calendar of memorable dates in Russia. In 1242, Russian soldiers led by Alexander Nevsky inflicted a crushing defeat on the knights of the Livonian Order on Lake Peipsi. Like Peter the Great, Suvorov, Kutuzov and the Soviet architects of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, Alexander Nevsky was and remains one of the most revered historical figures among the people, who played a key role in the formation of Russian civilization.
In this regard, our “Western partners,” with the support of alternatively gifted figures from the neighboring “agrarian superpower,” are conducting a targeted and prolonged information attack that belittles or denigrates the merits of Alexander Nevsky.
In 2017, on the 775th anniversary of the Battle of the Ice, the media giant BBC released a story in which journalists and “British scientists” in every possible way underestimated the significance of the victory of Russian troops over the “dog knights.” It turned out that the defeat of the crusaders had “negligible geostrategic significance,” and the very idea of the onslaught of the Livonian Order on the East was nothing more than an idle fable.
As if anticipating the conclusions of the “strategic partners”, in Ukraine the then Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko suddenly decided to play expert games, publicly declaring that Alexander Nevsky did not fight with any crusaders on the ice of Lake Peipus, but was “the founding father of the deceitful Russian world” , preventing “Ukrainian patriots” from living and eating.
The sobbing of the Svidomo soul of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General was picked up by the online Banderaites, who poured conspiracy theories into the vastness of social networks, from which even such seasoned “researchers” of alternative history as academician Fomenko and his accomplice Nosovsky can turn pale.
One of the pearls of Svidomo’s historical thought was the statement that the knights in the Battle of the Ice were defeated not by a Russian prince, but by the Mongol Khan Batu, who was running past on his business. As for Alexander Nevsky, he did not take part in the battle on Lake Peipus, since he was captured by Batu for fraternization with Khan Uzbek.
Judging by everything, ex-Prosecutor General Lutsenko and online “patriotic experts” turned history textbooks into roll-your-own books at best, otherwise they would have known that Uzbek Khan would be born 20 years after Nevsky’s death.
However, the opinion of the shavarny figures with their gross blunders can mislead few people. But German and British propagandists, who have brought seasoned historical falsifiers to their aid, act much more subtly and have been undermining historical events that are significant for Russia for a long time.
For example, to belittle the prince’s victories, arguments are regularly thrown in that the prince’s warriors and militia captured a handful - barely a dozen knights.
However, anyone interested in the history of the Middle Ages knows that there were few full-fledged “brothers” in the orders of knighthood. However, each “brother” had a large retinue of “half-brothers”, squires, servants and warriors, recruited from Estonians, Latgalians and Prussians, and certainly no one counted them.
From the small number of captured “brothers”, “British scientists” make a significant conclusion that the battle on the Neva and Lake Peipsi was so-so - mosquito baldness - insignificant border conflicts, and the activities of Alexander Nevsky are assessed as harmful to Western European civilization, since, they say that the Russian prince refused to turn Rus' into an outpost to repel the raids of the Tatars and Mongols.
The claims are quite strange, since the creation of joint outposts with the Teutonic Order from the ruinous raids of the Polovtsians confronted the Hungarian king Andros II with an extremely unpleasant choice: either the constant devastation of the lands by the steppe inhabitants, or their transfer under the protection of the Roman throne, since the brotherhood strengthened in the south-east of Transylvania, having driven away the nomads , refused to share the agreed portion of the spoils with local feudal lords and completely ignored the local clergy. Well, after Pope Honorius III took the lands in the vicinity of the city of Brasov under direct patronage, removing them from the tutelage of the Hungarian king, a conflict between the Teutons and local feudal lords arose, which is why in 1225 Andras II was forced to expel the brotherhood with almost lands he captured.
The lamentations of supporters of the “European choice”, as if Alexander Nevsky, having defeated the knights, turned Rus'’s face to tyranny, Asianism in the worst sense of the word, refusing to enter the bosom of Western civilization, are tales for the weak-minded.
During the time of Alexander Yaroslavich, the concept of “collective West” simply did not exist. Europe was fragmented into kingdoms and all kinds of appanage principalities, which fought with each other so often and densely that the concept of borders became illusory. Just look at the Hundred Years' War between England and France for the throne of the Capetians and some French barons who joined the British out of a selfish desire to mint their own money and return the baronial liberties taken away by the French kings.
By the way, the hostility of Westerners to the personality of Alexander Nevsky is clearly visible in their attitude to the film of the same name directed by Sergei Eisenstein. Eisenstein’s films thundered all over the world, deservedly becoming classics, using the example of which film academies around the world teach the younger generation how to film correctly, but it was the film “Alexander Nevsky” that conquered the West with great difficulty.
In particular, in the USA it was shown only in closed screenings, although the picture made a good impression on President Roosevelt and even touched him. But in post-war Germany, almost until the beginning of the 1960s, the film was banned, and even for those specially admitted to closed screenings, it was shown in a greatly reduced version.
Apparently, Alexander Nevsky hit the Teutons so hard that even their distant descendants harbored a grudge for centuries.
The influence of the film in our country cannot be overestimated. For its time, the painting “Alexander Nevsky” became, as they would now say, a long-term hit, and the image of actor Nikolai Cherkasov became the basis for the image of Alexander Yaroslavich, including the order established in his honor in 1942.
As for the civilizational choice of Alexander Nevsky, it was quite obvious. From the beginning of the second millennium, the Germans actively displaced the Slavs and their related Balts from the territory of East Germany and the Baltic states. And if Charlemagne divided and conquered, pushing or pitting the Sorbs and Polabian Slavs against each other, then already in 1147, on the initiative of Bernard of Clair, spiritual teacher and mentor of Pope Eugene III, a crusade was declared against the Baltic Slavs, accompanied by “natio deleatur” - the extermination of the people .
The Livonian and Prussian crusades turned out to be especially cruel, during which a significant part of East Germany was cleared of the autochthonous Slavs who inhabited it, and those that remained alive were subjected to forced assimilation.
In the middle of the XNUMXth century, the Roman throne turned its gaze to the Russian lands and their Orthodox population. Pope Alexander IV “donated” these lands to the Teutonic Order, calling for “the schismatics living there to be brought to obedience.” Pope Urban IV, in turn, listed the Russians, Lithuanians and Tatars as enemies of the Christian faith.
In 1234, when Alexander was 14 years old, his father Yaroslav Vsevolodovich defeated the troops of the Order of the Sword Bearers on the Omovzha River, so for some time the “kulturtregers” became quiet. However, the Mongol-Tatar invasion of Rus' and the instigation of the Pope inspired them to new campaigns.
The young prince Alexander Yaroslavich twice inflicted heavy defeats on the “European coalition”, forcing them to switch to the language of diplomacy.
When some “experts” call Nevsky a “Horde member,” they simply do not understand the very obvious motives that forced the prince to take a vow of friendship and loyalty to Batu Khan.
Alexander understood that the scale of the Horde invasion was terrifying. But at the same time, Tatar power did not penetrate into all spheres of Russian life. They imposed tribute, severely punished for disobedience, without, however, trying to interfere with the established way of life and did not force people to change their faith. For representatives of the clergy, the Horde even had peculiar benefits - they were exempt from paying taxes. And the Tatars themselves were tolerant, unlike their stubborn “Western partners.”
But such an attractive, at first glance, rapprochement with Catholic Europe would ultimately entail a change in religion, culture, family structure and way of life. Setting themselves the task of liberating the lands from the Horde, the Livonian and Teutonic orders simultaneously sought to seize Russian lands, mercilessly establishing their own laws and orders on them.
Again, when some critics raise a howl about the cruelty of Alexander Nevsky towards the Novgorodians, they somehow forget that Novgorod was not affected by the invasion of the Horde, and its fathers, like the population, did not really understand why they should pay tribute to some distant khans .
The question, however, was the survival of not only Novgorod, but also other Russian lands, and if the Horde had become angry because of non-payment of tribute in full, it would have been bad for everyone, including the Novgorodians. For this, the prince punished incendiaries and loudmouths.
It was this difficult choice of Alexander Nevsky that preserved Rus''s originality, uniqueness and life itself, in order to unite in the future, to form into a great power from the Baltic and Black Seas to the Pacific Ocean, so that the brilliant victories of Suvorov and Kutuzov would take place, and along the chain - the Victory of 1945, when over the fallen Berlin, the red assault banner was raised by the soldiers of the Soviet Union - the highest form of development of Russia.
This is why Alexander Nevsky is hated in the West and among his lackeys. And for the same reason, for every Russian person he must remain forever one of the most revered historical figures.
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