Norway, Sweden, and Novgorod: Scandinavian Perceptions of the Russians, Late Twelfth – Early Fourteenth Centuries

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss various perceptions of the Russians among the Norwegian and Swedish elite in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. During this period the so-called ‘Russian-Scandinavian cultural symbiosis’ prevalent since the establishment of Rus’ as a political entity in the ninth century was overshadowed by rivalry and hostility in the wake of the Baltic crusades. Until the thirteenth century, the Russians were conventionally seen by the Scandinavians – and indeed understood themselves – as a part of the unified gens Christianorum . However, after the expansion of the Swedes, Danes, and Germans in Finland, Estonia, Livonia, and Prussia, encounters between Scandinavians and Russians became more hostile. Western crusaders found the Russians not only resistant to their missioning efforts and territorial expansion, but even protective of their heathen allies. Russians themselves were thus re-defined by the Westerners as ‘others’, becoming legitimate targets for their crusading efforts. In that period, Swedish and Norwegian kings acted interchangeably as rivals and allies in Scandinavian politics and were involved in the Baltic crusades in different ways. Swedes were active in Finland at least from the late twelfth century, and in the thirteenth century they came into direct conflict with the Principality of Novgorod. The Norwegian kingdom, on the other hand, in the thirteenth century was more oriented to the North Sea region and its involvement in the Baltic crusades became much smaller. However, Norwegian kings had ambitions in the Arctic area of Scandinavia and claimed their right to collect taxes and to trade with the Sámi. During the thirteenth century, Norwegian control over taxation and trade in this district was challenged by the Principality of Novgorod, which sent Karelians to collect tribute from the Sámi. For the Norwegian elite, the realms north of Norway, usually known as Finnmark, and the border with the Russians seemed to lie beyond or outside the Baltic Rim. It was a different world there, compared to the Baltic Rim. The differences were not only found in the Arctic climate and landscape, but also the encounter with a society dominated by hunters rather than farmers, and a pagan population that had a long-lasting relationship to the Norse population both before and after Christianization.