Novgorod Republic

The Novgorod Republic was a medieval East Slavic state from the 12th to 15th centuries, stretching from the Gulf of Finland in the west to the northern Ural Mountains in the east, including the city of Novgorod and the Lake Ladoga regions of modern Russia. Citizens referred to their city-state as "His Majesty Lord Novgorod the Great" , or more often as "Lord Novgorod the Great" . The Republic prospered as the easternmost port of the Hanseatic League and its Slavic, Baltic and Finnic people were much influenced by the culture of the Viking-Varangians and Byzantine people.
In the middle of the 9th century Nevogardas was a name used to describe Viking staging posts on the trade route from the Baltic Sea to the Byzantine Empire. There is a theory that in fact it was not Novgorod as misinterpreted by later chroniclers , but Nevo Gardas – Viking settlements on Lake Ladoga, as in one of Nestor's chronicles from the 12th century he mentions a lake called "the Great Nevo", a clear link to the Neva River and, possibly furthermore, to Finnish nevo "sea" or neva "bog, quagmire". Novgorod was populated by various Slavic, Finnic and Baltic tribes that were constantly at war with one another for supremacy. However, these tribes came together during the beginning of the 9th century to try and form a negotiated settlement to end military aggression between each other. The Novgorod First Chronicle, a collection of writings depicting the history of Novgorod from 1016–1471, states that these tribes wanted to "Seek a prince who may rule over us and judge us according to law." By transforming its governing institutions, Novgorod rejected its politically dependent relationship to Kiev. Novgordian Rus' and its inhabitants were much influenced by the Viking culture and people. These cultural and ethnic Scandinavian imprint shaped later the society of Muscovite Rus' and whole Russia.

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