Teutonic Knights and Russian History

Paper Summary:

This paper analyzes 12th and 13th century Russian history, focusing on the period of the Teutonic Knights and the Baltic Crusade. It explains that the area of the Rus had been Christianized in large part before the knights arrived; the Baltic region had not been Christianized very much at all, however. The Baltic tribes had been plundered by their own neighbors; in turn, the Baltic tribes plundered shipping and trading from the rest of established Europe.

From the Paper:

"When we think of Russia today, especially post-Communism, we think of a vast territory stretching from somewhere vaguely European across frozen wastelands of Siberia to the Bering Straits and a stone's throw from Alaska. But Russia, as conceived in earlier times, was more often thought of as a collection of small states' modern Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and even Poland and running eastward toward Moscow, but not much farther. "The term, the Baltic Crusade, is today understood to refer first of all to the crusading program in medieval Livonia (modern Latvia and Estonia) and secondarily to those in Finland, Prussia and Lithuania. The campaigns undertaken by a variety of nationalities (primarily German, but also Swedish, Danish, Polish, English and French) extended over three centuries," wrote William Urban in "Victims of the Baltic Crusade." (1998)"

More papers on Teutonic Knights and Russian History:

• Essay # 68563 : "Russian History and Politics"
• Analytical Essay # 132399 : "Physics and the French and Russian Revolutions"
• Essay # 7201 : "Historiography and Military History"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: