A History of Europe, Key Battles, the Battle of Lake Papers, Part 5 of 5

The Battle of Lake Papers, also known as the Battle on the Ice, took place on the 5th of April, 1242.

In 1938, the event became famous thanks to its representation by the Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein in the film entitled Alexander Nyevsky.

This was an important piece of propaganda by Stalin in a period of growing tensions in Europe, just before the outbreak of World War II.

Unfortunately, the popular image it created is often mistaken as fact, and this is no coincidence.

Eisenstein has said to have chosen the battle because so little was known about the real events,

that he was unhindered by uncomfortable facts.

In truth, the film tells us as much about 1930s Russia as it does about the real events of the 1240s.

Still today, the legacy of Alexan Inyevsky and his military victories resonates in Russia,

for in 2008 he was voted the greatest Russian ever to have lived in a nationwide TV pole.

Instead of one major battle at Lake Papers, there were a series of confrontations between the soldiers of Western Christendom and those of Novgorod from 1240 to 1242.

The first attack against Novgorod was in 1240 and came from Sweden.

The next winter, the Danes invaded and in in 1242 the Teutonic Knights.

Most authors believe these attacks to be coordinated, organised by Pope Innocent III in his legates.

Ian Dickey, for example, in the book, Battles of the Medieval World, 1,500 writes, quote,

The Crusaders planned a three-pronged invasion in line with each individual contingent's ambitions.

The Swedes would sail the length of the modern Gulf of Finland and near the site of modern-day St. Petersburg.

The Danes, supported by visiting crusaders, would attack along the coast from their northern Estonian border through Nava and towards Copordia.

The Teutonic Knights and their allies would capture the city of Peskov at the southern tip of Lake Papers, end quote.

John Fennell, on the other hand, dismisses the idea that the three prongs of the attack were in any way part of the same campaign.

In his book, The Crisis of Medieval Russia, 1200 to 1304, he suggests this theory

was the fabrication of the Soviet historian Shaskolsky. According to Fenno, Schascholsky,

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