The annexation of Novgorod to Muscovy in 1478 destroyed the traditional order of communication between the Russian lands and Livonia. This gave rise to a chain reaction of disruptions in trade, the practice of developing and observing international treaties, and the sphere of diplomatic communication. Also began the deployment of Muscovy troops near the Livonian border, armed attacks on Livonian territory. This led to the formation in Livonia and Eastern Europe in general of the idea of the "Russian threat".
In socio-economic, political and cultural development, the Novgorod Republic was significantly different from other Russian cities, which was largely determined by the intensity of its trade contacts with Western Europe. Thanks to trade with the cities of the Hanseatic League, the way of life of Novgorod was adapted to the Western European standard. This was also aided by the principle of equality of foreigners with Novgorodians, which was the basis of the legal norms regulating their business communication, or "antiquity."
The Novgorod land was a kind of "buffer zone" located at the junction of the Orthodox (Russian) and Catholic (Livonian) cultural and historical spaces. "Grassroots" Russian lands, where such conditions were absent, carried out their ties with Western Europe through the mediation, mainly, of Novgorod (the same role was played by Pskov and Lithuania). After 1478, however, this harmony was destroyed. Muscovy, which expanded its borders up to Livonia, represented a different model of social status than Novgorod, since it was adapting to contact not with the Catholic West, but with the Mongol-Tatar Steppe. Such a System excluded the presence of European political and legal systems, in particular, Western European city law, on which the traditions of the Novgorod-Hanseatic trade ("antiquity") rested.
Ivan III was well aware of the economic and strategic importance of Livonia and the Hansa, which played an important role in the supply of Western European goods to Moscow, including weapons and strategic raw materials, and in ensuring the passage of Russian ambassadors to Europe, and therefore, after the subordination of Novgorod, he approved the Novgorod-Hanseatic "antiquity" his "golden certificate". But not for long.
Claudius Lebedev. “ Martha posadnitsa. Destruction of the Novgorod Veche.”
The negotiations that had begun with Livonia showed that the legal norms of international communication inherent in the Novgorod "antiquity" were to be canceled, since they completely excluded the will of the Grand Duke. Ivan III demanded "petitions" from the Hanseaticans, which meant for them a rejection of the principle of equality of the contracting parties. In T. Fenne's Hanseatic phrasebook (early 17th century), the meaning of the word “petition” is conveyed by the concept of “supplication” (Latin supplicare - to kneel, to kneel down). Ensuring the safety of the travels of Russian merchants in the Baltic Sea by the Livonian side and the equalizing procedure for the distribution of goods saved during the shipwreck, demanded by Ivan III when drawing up the contract, contradicted the traditional European norm “everyone bears his own loss”. To the Hanseaticans, these demands seemed arbitrary,but for the sake of restoring trade they made a compromise with the Muscovites. However, the trade world concluded in 1487 was perceived by them with a great deal of skepticism, the merchants of the Hansa understood that Muscovy would soon break it.
The conviction of Russian historians in the intention of Ivan III to end the Hansa monopoly in Baltic trade and to promote the development of Russian entrepreneurship is more than controversial, since the main destructive impulse in relation to the Hansa did not come from the Grand Duke's “anti-Hanseatic policy”, but was a by-product of adjusting the Novgorod way of life to the Moscow one. standard.
Thus, the mass deportation of Novgorod merchants and boyars in 1484-89 limited the possibilities of Novgorod international trade. The Moscow townspeople, resettled by the Grand Duke to Novgorod, did not have business ties, experience in overseas trade, knowledge of the situation on the Hanseatic market and the legal foundations of international trade; they were, in contrast to the Novgorodians, susceptible to mistrust of the "Latins". Finally, none of them knew the Baltic languages.
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Having almost stopped the international trade of Novgorod, the Grand Duke only achieved that his subjects began to increasingly travel to Livonia on trade, Muscovite exports were also transferred there, and this ensured the flourishing of its economy in the first half of the 16th century.
North-East Baltic, map of Olaf Magnus.
In 1494, Muscovy closed the Novgorod Hanseatic office (German courtyard). This turned into Hanseatic trade sanctions for the Moscow state, which, on the eve of the Russian-Swedish war of 1495-1497, complicated the supply of weapons, raw materials, and horses.
One of the versions of this thoughtless, suicidal action for Moscow is as follows. Ivan III negotiated with Maximilian Habsburg in 1489-1493. Maximilian refused to conclude a military and dynastic alliance with the Grand Duke of Moscow, and this hurt him. The German courtyard was the only "painful point" of the empire available to him, and he showed the West the degree of his irritation by unleashing repression on its inhabitants, most of them imperial subjects.
During the period of Novgorod independence, the settlement of conflicts was carried out at the public-legal level, the understanding of which was alien to Ivan III. The lack of reliable information among the Livonians gave rise to rumors about an imminent attack by the Russians, which were concentrated in the thesis about the “Russian threat” (“Rusche gefahr”) and, thanks to the well-established communications, quickly spread beyond the borders of Livonia.
Meanwhile, the closure of the German courtyard, the arrests of Hanseatic merchants in Novgorod and Russian "guests" in Riga and Reval, as well as the forbidden sanctions approved in the spring of 1495 by the Lubeck Hanseatag, did not stop the Russian-Livonian trade, but contributed to its qualitative change. Unable to preserve its traditional forms, it continued to develop in the form of semi-legal or "unusual" trade (ungewonlicke kopenschopp), moving from Novgorod to cities and trading places near the Russian-Livonian border - to Derpt, Narva, the Neva and Luga. The Livonian Landsgerrs did not put any obstacles to it, rightly believing that the preservation of trade would guarantee them from deteriorating relations with Moscow. Until the beginning of the Russian-Livonian War of 1501-1503, Russian merchants in Livonia enjoyed the right of a "clear path".
Livonia imposed sanctions: the export of strategic goods from the country - metals and products made from them, gunpowder, sulfur, saltpeter, as well as horses - was prohibited, which did not exclude smuggling. The banning policies most consistently adhered to the Reval government, guided, however, not by hostility towards Russian merchants, but by the desire to weaken their trading competitors in Dorpat / Tartu and Narva, who sabotaged the implementation of the sanctions, but due to the shortage of goods artificially created by Reval, and the reduction volumes of goods exported from Lubeck were also forced to restrict trade with Muscovy.
To eliminate the dangerous situation that arose after the defeat of the German courtyard, Master Plettenberg in 1494-1497 negotiated with the Grand Duke on the release of the Hanseatic merchants arrested in Novgorod, making a compromise with Ivan III. He broke, in particular, the resistance of Reval and Riga, who did not want to release the Russian hostages, but the Grand Duke violated preliminary agreements, demanding from the master to extradite the judges, who in Reval had condemned a Russian merchant to execution, and after the Swedes took Ivangorod, wanted to punish the "villains" from among the inhabitants of Narva who participated in the assault.
However, the need to normalize relations with the Hansa forced Ivan III to release the Hanseatic merchants, with the exception of four Revels, who were going to be kept in prison until the Grand Duke received satisfaction for the execution of his subject, although the Livonian master, to whom his demand was addressed, for lack of the right to interfere with the city's jurisdiction was unable to enforce it. As a result, a constructive dialogue did not work out, and the negotiations in Narva ended in nothing.
With the beginning of construction in 1492 Ivangorod complicated the situation on the Novgorod-Livonian border. The appearance of a Russian fortress near Narva with its densely populated suburbs distorted the local way of life. Livonian peasants, accustomed to fishing along the Russian bank of the Narova, were now severely persecuted for poaching, committing retaliatory violence against Russian merchants who accidentally fell into their hands. Due to weak discipline and poor supplies, the employees of the Russian garrison practiced systematic “skodas” (robberies) on the Livonian side, which made it easy for the Livonians living in the border zone to believe in the notorious “Russian threat”. From them, the inhabitants of Narva, the fear of the Russians spread further to Europe.
The danger for the Livonians was represented by the Russian troops stationed near the border, including mobile and poorly disciplined detachments of the noble cavalry and Tatars. Their foray into Livonian territory in 1478 and the lack of response from the Moscow authorities set a dangerous precedent.
On the eve of the campaign to Vyborg, Ivan III planned to deliver a preemptive strike on Revel, through which the Swedes received soldiers, weapons and money, and during the Russian-Swedish war of 1495-1497, he periodically reminded the Livonians of his presence with actions that they regarded as unfriendly and threatening (blocking the border, prohibiting sailing along the Narova, the transfer of troops to Ivangorod). In the spring of 1498, the order districts of Marienburg / Aluksne, Rositten / Rezekne, Ludzen / Ludza, Narva, Neishlos / Vasknarva, as well as the Dorpat and Riga dioceses were systematically attacked. This attack was notable for its breadth of coverage, depth of penetration (up to 100 km deep into Livonia), as well as cruelty in the treatment of the local population.
Convinced of the futility of further negotiations, Master Plettenberg in the summer of 1498 finally refused to continue them and began to prepare for a war with the Moscow state.
The main reason for the conflict between Muscovy on the one hand and Livonia and Sweden on the other was the defeat of Veliky Novgorod. This destroyed the traditional order of communication between the Russian and Western European “worlds” through a kind of “adapter”. Its accession to Moscow and the consistent destruction of the foundations of the republic's organization gave rise to a chain reaction of disruptions in trade, the practice of developing and observing international treaties, the sphere of diplomatic communication, etc. The alertness and fear of the Livonians, who knew the customs and manners of Novgorodians well, but had a vague idea of the "Muscovites", were aggravated by a lack of understanding of what was happening, which was a consequence of the loss of the public-legal character of the Russian-Livonian-Hanseatic relations. Ivan III, who became their main defendant, did not consider it necessary to motivate his political decisions,He was not inclined to compromise and preferred methods of force, which gave the Europeans a reason to talk about the tyrannical nature of his rule.
