In the famous film by Sergei Eisenstein there is an episode with Raven Stone. According to ancient legend, he rose from the waters of the lake at times of danger to the Russian land, helping to smash enemies. So it was in 1242. This date appears in all domestic historical sources, being inextricably linked with the Battle of the Ice.
It is not by chance that we focus your attention on this particular stone. After all, it is precisely historians who are still trying to understand what lake the Battle of Ice happened on . Indeed, many experts who work with historical archives still do not know where our ancestors actually fought with the knights of the Teutonic Order.
The official point of view is that the battle took place on the ice of Lake Peipsi. Today, only the fact that the battle took place on April 5th is reliably known. The year of the Battle of the Ice - 1242 from the beginning of our era. In the annals of Novgorod and in the Livonian chronicle there is not a single coincident detail at all: the number of soldiers participating in the battle and the number of wounded and killed vary.
We don’t even know the details of what happened. Only information has come down to us that a victory was won on Lake Peipsi, and even then in a significantly distorted, transformed form. This contrasts sharply with the official version, but in recent years the voices of those scientists who insist on full-scale excavations and repeated archival research have been heard louder. They all want to not only know about which lake the Battle of Ice occurred on, but also to find out all the details of the event.
The official description of the course of the battle
Opposing rati met in the morning. It was 1242,
Lake Peipsi has not yet been opened from ice. The Russian troops had many shooters who courageously stepped forward, taking the brunt of the German attack. Pay attention to what the Livonian chronicle says: “The banners of the brothers (German knights) entered the ranks of the shooters ... many of those killed on either side fell on the grass (!).”
Thus, the Chronicles and manuscripts of the Novgorodians at this moment completely converge. Indeed, in front of the Russian army was a detachment of light shooters. As the Germans later found out from their sad experiences, it was a trap. The "heavy" columns of German infantry broke through the ranks of lightly armed soldiers and set off on. We did not just write the first word in quotation marks. Why? We will talk about this below.
Russian mobile units quickly surrounded the Germans from the flanks, and then began to destroy them. The Germans fled, and the Novgorod army pursued them for about seven miles. It is noteworthy that even at this point there are disagreements in various sources. If to describe the Battle of the Ice briefly, then in this case this episode raises some questions.
The importance of victory
So, most witnesses say nothing at all about the “drowned” knights. Part of the German army was surrounded. Many knights were captured. In principle, 400 fallen Germans were reported, and another fifty were captured. Miracles, according to the annals, "fell without a number." That's all the Battle of the Ice briefly.
The Order pained the defeat. In the same year, peace was concluded with Novgorod, the Germans completely abandoned their conquests not only in Russia, but also in Letgol. A complete exchange of prisoners was even made. However, the Teutons tried again to capture Pskov after a dozen years. Thus, the year of the Battle of Ice became an extremely important date, as it allowed the Russian state to calm down its warlike neighbors somewhat.
About common myths
Even in local history museums in the Pskov region, they are very skeptical about the widespread assertion of “heavy” German knights. Allegedly, because of their massive armor, they almost drowned in the waters of the lake. Many historians broadcast with rare enthusiasm that the Germans in their lats weighed "three times more" than the average Russian warrior.
That's just any weapon specialist of that era will tell you with confidence that the warriors on both sides were protected approximately equally.
Armor is not for everyone!
The fact is that massive armor, which can be found everywhere on miniatures of the Battle on the Ice in history books, appeared only in the XIV-XV centuries. In the XIII century, the soldiers put on a steel helmet, chain mail or plate armor (the latter were very expensive and rare), bracers and leggings were put on limbs. It all weighed twenty kilograms maximum. Most of the German and Russian soldiers did not have such protection at all.
Finally, there wasn’t much sense in such heavily armed infantry on ice in principle. Everyone fought on foot, there was no need to be afraid of the cavalry attack. So why take the risk once again, going on thin April ice in such an amount of iron?
But at school he is studying the Battle of the Ice class 4, and therefore no one simply goes into such subtleties.
Water or land?
According to the generally accepted conclusions made by the expedition led by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (leader Karaev), the battle site is considered to be a small section of the Warm Lake (part of Chudsky), which is located 400 meters from the modern Cape Sigovets.
For almost half a century, no one doubted the results of these studies. The fact is that then scientists did a really great job, analyzing not only historical sources, but also the hydrology and geology of the site. As the writer Vladimir Potresov, who was a direct participant in the expedition, explains, it was possible to create a "whole vision of the problem." So on which lake did the Battle of Ice happen?
Here the conclusion is the same - in Chudsky. There was a battle, and it took place somewhere in those parts, but there are still problems with determining the exact location.
What did the researchers find out?
First of all, they once again read the annals. It said that the slaughter was "on Uzmen, at Voronei’s stone." Imagine that you are telling your friend how to get to a stop, using terms that are clear to you and him. If you tell the same thing to a resident of another area, he may not understand. We are in the same position. What is Uzmen? What is the raven stone? Where was all this at all?
More than seven centuries have passed since then. Rivers changed their channels in less time! So there is nothing left of real geographical coordinates. If we assume that the battle to one extent or another really took place on the icy surface of the lake, then finding something becomes even more difficult.
German version
Seeing the difficulties of their Soviet colleagues, in the 30s a group of German scientists hastened to declare that the Russians ... invented the Battle of the Ice! Alexander Nevsky, they say, simply created an image of a winner in order to give his figure more weight in the political arena. Here are just about the episode of the battle and told the old German chronicles, so the battle really was.
The Russian scientists went real verbal battles! Everyone tried to find out the place of the battle that happened in ancient times. Everyone called it the “same” stretch of territory on either the western or the eastern shore of the lake. Someone argued that the battle took place in general in the central part of the reservoir. There was a misfortune with the Raven Stone in general: either mountains of small pebbles at the bottom of the lake were taken for him, or someone saw him in each ledge of rock on the banks of the reservoir. There were many disputes, only the matter did not advance at all.
In 1955, everyone was tired of it, and the same expedition set off. Archeologists, philologists, geologists and hydrographs, specialists in Slavic and German dialects of that time, cartographers appeared on the shores of Lake Peipsi. Everyone was interested in where the Battle of the Ice was. Alexander Nevsky was here, this is known for certain, but where did his troops meet with the adversaries?
Several boats with teams of experienced divers were given full disposal to scientists. Many enthusiasts, schoolchildren from local historical societies also worked on the shores of the lake. So what did Lake Peipsi give the researchers? Nevsky was here with the army?
Black stone
For a long time, there was an opinion among Russian scientists that the Raven Stone is the key to all the secrets of the Battle of the Ice. His search was given special significance. Finally he was discovered. It turned out that it was a rather high stone ledge on the western tip of the island of Gorodets. For seven centuries, not too dense rock was almost completely destroyed by winds and water.
At the foot of the Voronny stone, archaeologists quickly found the remains of Russian sentinel fortifications that blocked passages to Novgorod and Pskov. So those places were really familiar to contemporaries because of their importance.
New contradictions
Just determining the location of such a landmark in antiquity did not at all mean establishing the place where the massacre took place on Lake Peipsi. Quite the contrary: the currents here are always so strong that ice as such does not exist here in principle. If the Russians had fought the Germans here, they would have drowned everything, regardless of their armor. The chronicler, as usual at that time, simply indicated Raven Stone as the closest landmark that was visible from the battlefield.
Event Versions
If you return to the description of the events, which is given at the very beginning of the article, then you will probably recall the expression "... many of those killed on either side fell on the grass." Of course, the “grass” in this case could be an idiom denoting the very fact of the fall, of death. But today, historians are more and more inclined to look for archaeological evidence of that battle on the shores of a reservoir.
In addition, no armor has yet been found at the bottom of Lake Peipsi. Neither Russian nor Teutonic. Of course, in principle there were very few armor as such (we already spoke about their high cost), but at least something had to remain! Especially when you consider how many diving dives were made.
Thus, it is possible to draw a convincing conclusion that ice under the weight of the Germans, who were not too different in armament from our soldiers, did not break. In addition, finding armor even at the bottom of the lake is unlikely to prove anything for sure: more archaeological evidence is needed, since border skirmishes in those places constantly happened.
In general terms, it is clear on which lake the Battle of Ice occurred. The question of exactly where the slaughter was, still worries domestic and foreign historians.
Monument to the landmark battle
A monument in honor of this significant event was erected in 1993. It is located in the city of Pskov, installed on Sokolikha Mountain. The monument is more than a hundred kilometers distant from the theoretical site of the battle. This stele is dedicated to the "Workers of Alexander Nevsky." Patrons raised money for it, which in those years was incredibly difficult. Therefore, this monument is of even greater value for the history of our country.
Artistic embodiment
In the very first sentence, we mentioned the film by Sergei Eisenstein, which he made back in 1938. The tape was called "Alexander Nevsky." Just to consider this magnificent (from an artistic point of view) film as a historical guide is definitely not worth it. Absurdities and obviously false facts are present there in abundance.