The Battle of the Novogorodians with the Suzdalians (битва новгородцев с суздальцами) was a 1169 siege of the city of Novgorod the Great, capital of the Novgorod Republic, during the 1167–1169 Kievan succession crisis.
After the Iziaslavichi grand prince Mstislav II of Kiev had been ousted during the Sack of Kiev in March 1169 by a coalition of Rostislavichi (Smolensk), Yurievichi (Suzdalian), and Olgovichi of Chernigovian) princes, the dethroned grand prince's son Roman Mstislavich, prince of Novgorod, was beleaguered by another Yurievichi army sent from Suzdalia by Andrey Bogolyubsky. Unlike their victory at Kiev, the Suzdalians and their allies suffered a crushing defeat at Novgorodian hands.
Nevertheless, a subsequent Suzdalian economic blockade of the city prompted the Novgorodians to expel Roman Mstislavich in 1170, after which Andrey selected first Rurik Rostislavich of Smolensk (1170) and then his own son Yury Bogolyubsky of Suzdalia (1171) to become the next princes of Novgorod.
Some time after the siege, a belief sprung up that Novgorod had been miraculously delivered, giving rise to a legend. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the episode became the basis for several hagiographic tales in the Russian church, as well as two large icons executed in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries (and now housed respectively in the Novgorod Museum and the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.)
The battle in history
The episode took place in 1169 when Andrei Bogolyubsky, Prince of Vladimir (on the Kliazma), besieged the city. His protégé in Novgorod, Prince Sviatoslav Rostislavich, had left Novgorod in 1167 upon the death of his father (Grand Prince Rostislav Mstislavich, who had also backed his reign in Novgorod). When the new Kievan grand prince, Mstislav Iziaslavich, sent his son, Roman, to be prince of Novgorod, Andrei fought to return Sviatoslav to the Novgorodian throne, sending his army to besiege Novgorod and force them to drive out Roman and take back Sviatoslav.
The Novgorodians delivered a crushing defeat upon the Suzdalians and their allies.
Bogolyubsky was, in fact, able to place his candidate on the Novgorodian throne the following year. The Novgorodians dismissed Sviatoslav in 1170. Bogolyubsky was, by then, the most powerful prince in Kievan Rus'. He had conquered Kiev and placed his candidate, Gleb, on the grand princely throne there. Andrei then remained the most powerful prince in Rus until his assassination in 1174. Thus, while the Novgorodians felt it had been miraculously delivered from Bogolyubsky's clutches in 1169, their policy of independence from him failed, and they gave in to his policies the following year.
Legend of the icon
According to a later legend (first written doen almost three centuries after the battle),during the siege, Archbishop Ilya of Novgorod, ordered that the Icon of the Mother of God of the Sign (ru: Bogomater Znamenie or Богоматер Знамение) be brought from the Church of the Transfiguration on Ilin Street on the eastern edge of the city, across the great bridge spanning the Volkhov River, and into the Detinets to be venerated in the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom and displayed from the Detinets walls give the Novgorodians courage. According to the legend, when the deacon went to the church, he (miraculously) could not lift the icon and went back to report this to the archbishop, who went himself over the bridge to the church and processed with the icon back to the Detinets. the icon was then displayed on the walls and, according to the tale, struck by a Suzdalian arrow, at which time, according to the legend, it wept. The legend went on to say that through the intercessions of the Mother of God and of Archbishop Ilya, and several other saints (most notably Boris and Gleb and St. George, all depicted in the icons of the battle leading the Novgorodian army out against the Suzdalians), the Novgorodians were able to defeat the Suzdalians, after which Prince Andrei withdrew back to Suzdalia.