s was to cross the whole of Russia and
Asia. Yaroslaff bent his knees to the new master of the world, Oktai,
succeeded in refuting the accusations brought against him by a Russian
boyar, and obtained a new confirmation of his title. On his return he
died in the desert of exhaustion, and his faithful servants brought
his body back to Vladimir. His son Andrew succeeded him in Suzdal,
1246-1252. His other son, Alexander, reigned at Novgorod the Great.

Alexander was as brave as he was intelligent. He was the hero of the
North, and yet he forced himself to accept the necessary humiliations
of his terrible situation. In his youth we see him fighting with all
the enemies of Novgorod, Livonian knights and Tchuds, Swedes and
Finns. The Novgorodians found themselves at issue with the
Scandinavians on the subject of their possessions on the Neva and the
Gulf of Finland. As they had helped the natives to resist the Latin
faith, King John obtained the promise of Gregory IX that a crusade,
with plenary indulgences, should be preached against the Great
Republic and her _proteges_, the pagans of the Baltic. His son-in-law,
Birger, with an army of Scandinavians, Finns, and western crusaders,
took the command of the forces, and sent word to the Prince of
Novgorod: "Defend yourself if you can; know that I am already in your
provinces." The Russians on their side, feeling they were fighting for
orthodoxy, opposed the Latin crusade with a Greek one.

Alexander humbled himself in St. Sophia, received the benediction of
the archbishop Spiridion, and addressed an energetic harangue to his
warriors. He had no time to await reinforcements from Suzdal. He
attacked the Swedish camp, which was situated on the Ijora, one of the
southern affluents of the Neva, which has given its name to Ingria.
Alexander won a brilliant victory, which gained him his surname of
Nevski, and the honor of becoming, under Peter the Great, the second
conqueror of the Swedes, one of the patrons of St. Petersburg. By the
orders of his great successor his bones repose in the monastery of
Alexander Nevski.

The battle of the Neva was preserved in a dramatic legend. An Ingrian
chief told Alexander how, in the eve of the combat, he had seen a
mysterious bark, manned by two warriors with shining brows, glide
through the night. They were Boris and Gleb, who came to the rescue of
their young kinsman. Other accounts have preserved to us the
individual exploits of the Russian he