Magnus is the king of mercia. Magnus I the Good. Break with Ivan the Terrible
Bishop of Ezel
19-year-old Duke Magnus appeared in Ahrensburg (Ezel Island) in the spring of 1560. In the hope that Denmark would support him, the island's nobility supported him.
Unlike Ezel, the Pilten monastery area was territorially fragmented and consisted of three parts - the dioceses of Pilten, Donedangen, Ervalen in northern Courland, the dioceses of Hasenpot, Neuhausen, Amboten, lying in isolation in the south, and the diocese of Sackenhausen on the coast.
The young duke found himself in a difficult position. On the one hand, the still existing Livonian Order tried to protest the sale of Pilten and Ezel, since it had to be coordinated with the order. On the other side Russian state openly tried to seize the Baltic lands.
King of Livonia
Magnus brought only a small contingent of soldiers with him, but as King of Livonia he was appointed commander of the Russian forces sent against the Swedes. On June 25, his army, together with Russian detachments, set out on a campaign and on August 21 began the siege of Revel.
Denmark did not send a fleet to help Magnus. The Russians did not have their own flotilla, only a few privateers based in Narva and on the Neva River. Thus, the sea was dominated by the Swedes, who could send reinforcements and ammunition to the Revel garrison. On March 16, 1571, Magnus was forced to lift the siege of Revel.
In general, the idea of creating a vassal kingdom turned out to be successful: Magnus, the son of the European king, was much more attractive than Ivan the Terrible in the eyes of the German and Danish Livonian nobility. At the same time, his loyalty to Moscow was not in doubt.
The tsar presented the Estonian city of Oberpalen to the king of Livonia and issued a letter to include in the kingdom's lands the territory that is currently part of the Volkhov district of the Leningrad region, as well as the right to the Karelian lands. At this time, the bride of Magnus, Princess Euphemia Staritskaya, suddenly died. Ivan IV offered him the hand of her younger thirteen-year-old sister, Maria.
Trying to consolidate his precarious position in 1577, Magnus began secret negotiations with King Stephen Bathory of Poland, after which he ceded the throne to the Bathory family. Magnus appealed to the population to surrender if they did not want to be captured by Ivan the Terrible. Thus, a number of cities were taken and annexed to the Livonian Kingdom, including Valmiera, Kokenhausen and Wenden.
The king, hearing about this, besieged Wenden, summoned Magnus for negotiations and arrested him. Wenden was captured after a brutal bombardment. The remnants of Magnus's soldiers blew themselves up in the western wing of the Order's castle, and he himself was imprisoned. (According to other sources, he was restored to the title of king of Livonia, and then betrayed the king again). Denmark, which had never supported Magnus, after some bargaining still retained the rights to Ezel and Pilten.
In 1580, Magnus took part in the war on the side of Batory and raided the Dorpat region.
After the war, in 1583, Magnus died in Pilten, leaving the widow with children in her arms. Later, Boris Godunov deceived the widow Maria to Moscow, where she was forcibly tonsured into a monastery. This was done so that the Poles could not use Mary as a contender for the Russian throne. The fact is that in Russia, unlike most countries of Catholic Europe, they recognized the possibility of female succession to the throne. The daughter was allegedly poisoned.
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Excerpt from Magnus (King of Livonia)
“I’m not talking about you,” he said. “I don’t know you, and I confess I don’t want to know.” I'm talking generally about the staff.“And I’ll tell you what,” Prince Andrew interrupted him with calm authority in his voice. - You want to insult me, and I am ready to agree with you that it is very easy to do if you do not have sufficient respect for yourself; but you must admit that both the time and the place are very badly chosen for this. One of these days we will all have to be in a big, more serious duel, and besides, Drubetskoy, who says that he is your old friend, is not in the least to blame for the misfortune of my face that you do not like. However, ”he said, getting up,“ you know my name and you know where to find me; but do not forget, ”he added,“ that I do not consider myself or you in the least insulted, and my advice, as a person older than you, is to leave this matter without consequences. So on Friday, after the show, I'm waiting for you, Drubetskoy; goodbye, - concluded Prince Andrew and left, bowing to both.
Rostov remembered what he had to answer only when he had already left. And he was even more angry for forgetting to say this. Rostov at once ordered his horse to be brought in, and, having dryly said goodbye to Boris, drove off to his place. Should he go to the headquarters tomorrow and summon this breaking adjutant, or, in fact, leave it this way? there was a question that tormented him all the way. Either he thought angrily about the pleasure with which he would see the fright of this small, weak and proud man under his pistol, then he felt with surprise that of all the people he knew, he would not have so much wanted to have as his friend. as this aide-de-camp he hated.
On the next day of Boris's meeting with Rostov, there was a review of the Austrian and Russian troops, both fresh ones who had come from Russia and those who had returned from the campaign with Kutuzov. Both emperors, Russian with the heir to the crown prince and Austrian with the archduke, made this review of the allied 80 thousandth army.
From early in the morning, the smartly cleaned and cleaned troops began to move, lining up on the field in front of the fortress. Then thousands of feet and bayonets moved with fluttering banners and, at the command of the officers, stopped, turned around and formed at intervals, bypassing other similar masses of infantry in different uniforms; then the well-dressed cavalry in blue, red, green embroidered uniforms with embroidered musicians in front, on black, red, gray horses, sounded like a measured stomp and clanging; then, stretching out with its brass sound of shaking on carriages, cleaned, shiny cannons and with its own smell of pallets, the artillery crawled between the infantry and cavalry and placed itself in designated places. Not only generals in full dress uniform, with extremely fat and thin waists and reddened, propped collars, necks, scarves and all orders; not only well-oiled, dressed-up officers, but every soldier - with a fresh, washed and shaved face and ammunition cleaned to the last possibility of shine, every horse, groomed so that, like satin, its fur shone like satin and a hair soaked to the hair lay a wet mane, - everyone felt that something serious, significant and solemn was happening. Each general and soldier felt their insignificance, conscious of themselves as a grain of sand in this sea of people, and together they felt their power, conscious of themselves as a part of this huge whole.
Intense efforts and efforts began in the early morning, and at 10 o'clock everything was in order. Rows of ranks stood on the huge field. The whole army was stretched out in three lines. Cavalry in front, artillery behind, infantry still behind.
Between each row of troops there was, as it were, a street. Three parts of this army were sharply separated from one another: the combat Kutuzovskaya (in which the Pavlograd people were on the right flank in the front line), the army and guards regiments that came from Russia, and the Austrian army. But everyone stood under one line, under one command and in the same order.
An agitated whisper swept through the leaves like the wind: “They're coming! are coming! " Frightened voices were heard, and a wave of bustle of the last preparations ran through all the troops.
Ahead of Olmutz a group of advances appeared. And at the same time, although the day was calm, a light stream of wind ran through the army and slightly shook the weather vane and the loose banners, which fluttered against their shafts. It seemed that the army itself, with this light movement, expressed its joy at the approach of the sovereigns. One voice was heard: "Attention!" Then, like roosters at dawn, voices repeated at different ends. And everything was quiet.
In the dead silence there was only the sound of horses. It was the retinue of the emperors. The sovereigns rode up to the flank and the sounds of the trumpeters of the first cavalry regiment were heard, playing the general march. It seemed that it was not the trumpets who were playing this, but the army itself, rejoicing at the approach of the sovereign, naturally made these sounds. From behind these sounds, one could clearly hear one young, gentle voice of the Emperor Alexander. He said a greeting, and the first regiment barked: Urrah! so deafening, prolonged, joyful that the people themselves were horrified by the size and strength of the bulk they made up.
Rostov, standing in the front ranks of the Kutuzov army, to which the emperor approached the first, experienced the same feeling that every man of this army experienced - a feeling of self-forgetfulness, a proud consciousness of power and a passionate attraction to the one who was the cause of this triumph.
He felt that the whole bulk of this (and he, associated with it, an insignificant grain of sand) would go into fire and water, to a crime, to death or to the greatest heroism, depended on one word of this man, and therefore he could not help but tremble and not freeze at the sight of this approaching word.
- Urrah! Urrah! Urrah! - thundered from all sides, and one regiment after another received the sovereign with the sounds of the general of the march; then Urra! ... General march and Urra again! and urrah !! which, getting stronger and stronger, merged into a deafening rumble.
Until the sovereign still approached, each regiment, in its silence and immobility, seemed a lifeless body; only the sovereign was compared with him, the regiment became animated and thundered, joining the roar of the entire line that the sovereign had already passed. With the terrible, deafening sound of these voices, in the midst of the masses of the army, motionless, as if petrified in their quadrangles, casually, but symmetrically and, most importantly, hundreds of horsemen of the suite moved freely and in front of them two people - emperors. It was on them that the restrained passionate attention of all this mass of people was undividedly focused.
The handsome, young Emperor Alexander, in a horse-guards uniform, in a triangular hat worn from the field, attracted all the power of attention with his pleasant face and sonorous, low voice.
Rostov stood not far from the trumpeters and from a distance recognized the sovereign with his keen eyes and watched his approach. When the emperor approached at a distance of 20 steps and Nicholas clearly, to all the details, examined the beautiful, young and happy face of the emperor, he experienced a feeling of tenderness and delight, the likes of which he had never experienced. Everything - every feature, every movement - seemed to him charming in the sovereign.
Stopping opposite the Pavlograd regiment, the emperor said something in French to the Austrian emperor and smiled.
Seeing this smile, Rostov himself involuntarily began to smile and felt an even stronger rush of love for his sovereign. He wanted to show with something his love for the sovereign. He knew it was impossible, and he wanted to cry.
The sovereign summoned the regimental commander and said a few words to him.
"Oh my God! what would have happened to me if the sovereign had turned to me! - thought Rostov: - I would die of happiness.
The sovereign also addressed the officers:
- All, gentlemen (every word was heard by Rostov, like a sound from heaven), thank you from the bottom of my heart.
How happy Rostov would be if he could now die for his tsar!
- You deserve the banners of St. George and you will be worthy of them.
"Just die, die for him!" thought Rostov.
The Emperor also said something that Rostov did not hear, and the soldiers, pulling on their breasts, shouted: Urrah! Rostov shouted, too, bending down to the saddle, which was his strength, wanting to hurt himself with this shout, only to fully express his delight for the sovereign.
The sovereign stood for several seconds against the hussars, as if he were indecisive.
"How could the sovereign be in indecision?" thought Rostov, and then even this indecision seemed to Rostov majestic and charming, like everything that the sovereign did.
The sovereign's indecision lasted for an instant. The sovereign's leg, with a narrow, sharp toe, as was worn at that time, touched the groin of the anglized chestnut mare on which he was riding; the sovereign's hand in a white glove picked up the reins, he set off, accompanied by a chaotically fluttering sea of adjutants. Further and further he rode off, stopping at other regiments, and, finally, only his white plume could be seen by Rostov from behind the retinue that surrounded the emperors.
On Valaam, as in all places with a rich but forgotten past, an abundance of ruins and a silently mysterious nature, much can amaze the imagination: both underground passages - real and existing only in legends - and still living legends about buried treasures, and, of course, mysterious gravestones.
The most famous of the mysterious Valaam graves is the tombstone of the Swedish king Magnus, which not only takes the imagination of inquisitive tourists, but for the second century has made many scientists puzzle.
According to the legend reproduced on the tombstone (this legend is also contained in almost all editions of the Valaam Monastery), Magnus went on a campaign to Valaam in 1371, got to Ladoga in a storm, his entire fleet died, but he alone escaped and was thrown ashore islands. The monks picked him up, and in gratitude for his deliverance went to Orthodox faith, taking the name Gregory, and accepted the schema. He died on Valaam, where he was buried.
As a matter of fact, the slab itself is not left in the cemetery today - for fifty years since 1940, when monks from the then Finnish island went deep into Finland, where they founded a new monastery, until 1989, when a monastery was revived on Valaam, the island suffered destruction, which did not bypass the old cemetery. Many slabs were broken, removed from their places, gravestones and crosses were destroyed. By the summer of 1970, only a fragment with scraps of inscription remained of Magnus's tombstone. But the full text is recorded in a number of books:
“In this place the body is buried,
In 1371 it betrayed the earth,
Magnus, the king of Sweden,
Which the, holy baptism perception,
At baptism he was named Gregory,
He was born in Sweden in 1336,
1360 was enthroned,
He had great power and was militia with it,
He fought against Russia twice,
And he took an oath to end the war,
But, breaking the oath,
paki armed himself,
Then in the fierce waves sank
His army remained in Lake Ladoga,
And the armed navy insignia
was not found.
He himself is on the ship's board
worn,
Three days and three nights
God kept
Was spared from drowning,
Waves to the shore of this monastery
managed,
They were taken by the monks and brought into the monastery,
Enlightened by Orthodox baptism;
Then instead of the royal tiara
Dressed in monks
was rewarded with schema,
After living for three days, he died here,
Having been in the crown and crowned with schema. "
King Magnus, II Erickson, also known as Magnus Smek, which means "Affectionate" in Swedish (but for some reason in our literature it is translated as "Deceived"), is a real figure.
And he really went on campaigns to Russia more than once. But it is known for certain that he died off the coast of Norway - in 1374, and not in 1371. And even at the beginning of the last century, the most educated visitors to the Valaam Monastery treated this slab and the legend of Magnus with distrust and irony.
However, this is the main problem - how this legend arose, how this grave appeared on Valaam, and if this tombstone is fake, why did it need to be done, who am I actually resting under it?
The very appearance of the figure of the Swedish monarch in the context of Valaam history is not surprising. For many centuries, the northern Ladoga area was the very border where the interests of Novgorod Rus and Sweden clashed. And the Valaam Monastery has been ravaged by the Swedes more than once in its history. Monastic sources say that it was first raided by the formidable Vikings in the 11th century (however, there is no reliable evidence that the monastery existed at that time). Then, supposedly, the Swedes, "being struck on the shores of Lake Ladoga, in annoyance, sailing on the lake on ships, attacked the defenseless monks of the Valaam." The monastery was ruined more than once in the 16th century. And in 1611, the revived monastery was again destroyed to the ground by the Swedish commander Jacob Pontius De la Gardie. And only from the beginning of the 18th century, when Peter I finally conquered the Karelian Isthmus from his northern opponents and in 1715 issued a decree on the "renewal" of the Valaam monastery, the monastery on Ladoga no longer knew foreign invasions.
As for Magnus himself, it is known that he was born in 1316, continued the Swedish colonization of Finland, and in 1348 renewed aggression against the Russian lands. But his attack on Novgorod ended in defeat, and peace was made in 1351.
The strengthening of royal power under Magnus met with resistance from large feudal lords and the church. During the struggle with their protege, his nephew Albert, Magnus lost the throne in 1363. Defeated and captured by Albert, Magnus fled to his son Haakon in Norway in 1371, where he died on December 1, 1374, crossing the sea in a storm.
These are the facts that are recognized by all modern historians. And nothing, it would seem, connects Magnus with the Valaam Monastery, except that he, as they say in old books, “smashed the borders of Karelia,” and everything would be clear and simple, if not for one interesting document found in a number of ancient Russian chronicles.
The manuscript of the king of Sweyski
The Valaam legend about the grave of Magnus was confirmed by the monks of the monastery with the "will" of Magnus, which is first found in the ancient Soyafi chronicle (1448-1462). Here, under the year 6860 (that is, 1352) follows the "Manuscript of Magnus, King of Sveisky."
We will quote two passages. Beginning: "Se az Magnush, King of Sveisky, named in holy baptism by Gregory, leaving this world, I write a handwriting in my stomach and I order my children and my brethren and all the land of Sveisky: do not go to Russia on the kiss of the cross, we are not helped ..." Further in The Manuscripts tells how severely Magnus suffered for treacherously breaking his oath and attacking Russia, with which he was bound by a peace treaty: God punished Sweden with hunger, floods, pestilence and internecine wars; Magnus himself lost his mind for a year and sat in prison, chained to the wall ("and touched me in the ward"), and then, freed by his son Isaacun, but lost the throne, he went to Norway, but was shipwrecked at sea and, clinging to a fragment of a board, vowed that he would accept the Orthodox faith if he remained alive. Beaten by the waves to the shore and dragged onto dry land by monks, he was baptized, tonsured a monk and lived for three more days - “but all that God will execute me for my arrogance, that I have stepped on Russia ... And now I order my children and my brethren: do not tread on Russia ... and whoever comes, but then God and fire and water executed me ... ".
Many facts of the "Manuscript" are true. But not all of them. Note for now that Magnus drowned almost 23 years later than it was clothed in the Sophia Chronicle, and three years later than it was recorded on the Valaam tombstone.
From the Sofia Chronicle, the Manuscript, with minor and insignificant changes, passed into the annalistic set called the Chronicle of Abraham, the Moscow Chronicle of the end of the 15th century, the chronicle according to the Resurrection List, the Patriarchal, or Nikon's, Chronicle, Nikanorovskaya Chronicle, The Book of Degrees "... So this document is well known, but how authentic is it?
Having visited Valaam, Andrei Nikolaevich Muravyov (1806 - 1874), a writer, brother of the Decembrist Alexander Muravyov, wrote about King Magnus that “his imaginary testament is inscribed in the chronicles of the Russians”. The well-known Slavic philologist of the 19th century, Alexander Khristoforovich Vostokov, without any reservations, supports this opinion, attributing the authorship of the "Manuscript" to a contemporary of Magnus.
Prince P.P. Vyazemsky, the son of a friend of Pushkin, who studied the Valaam legends about Magnus, wrote in 1881: "The poems are new, but the legend is ancient ... The legend of the death of Magnus could be included in the" Sophia Annals directly from oral retellings in Novgorod ... " Swedish historian Olaf Dalin, whose work - "The History of the Swedish State" - was translated into Russian in 1805, writes on this occasion: and under the name of Magnus himself a published work ... And although it is possible in this work to understand some passages, or at least guess what they are pointing at, but, however, the names, chronology, incidents and truth are too confused. "
Valaam monks, referring more than once to the chronicle "Manuscript" as confirmation of their legend about the grave of Magnus, did not even attempt to doubt the authenticity of the "Manuscript" itself: historian O. Dalin, can only extreme distrust and fanaticism. " Soviet scientist V.N. Bernadsky calls the author of "a well-known historical and publicistic work, clothed in the form of Magnus's will", "a Russian patriot of the XIV century."
Whoever the author of the "Manuscript" really was, he - and here the opinions of experts agree - was a man sufficiently knowledgeable in the dramatic twists and turns of the history of the ill-fated Swedish king. And in spite of all the obvious falseness of Magnus's will from the Russian chronicles, the general historical context, where the Manuscript fits into, is quite reliable.
However, it is necessary to pay attention to the most important thing: in the "Manuscript" nowhere is it said about Balaam and about Ladoga in general. There we are talking only about a certain "monastery of the Holy Savior on the Polnaya River." What is the connection between the "Manuscript", to which the Valaam monks were so fond of referring, and their monastery?
Perhaps this question can be answered by determining what kind of river Polska it is and where exactly the dethroned Swedish king died.
Where does the Full River flow?
Olaf Dalin, who reacted so ironically to the "Magnush Manuscript", when retelling its content, explains some of the names and geographical names found in the chronicle text. He explains that “Belger” is a jarl, a representative of the clan nobility, Birger, “Alexander Nikolaevich” is Alexander Nevsky, that “Sakun” is Hakon, and “Murmansk Lands” is Norway. In the same way, he deciphers the "Full River" as "Blomfjord in Norway".
And apparently, for him this is quite an obvious fact. Elsewhere in his multivolume work, talking about the death of the king, Dalin writes: “Magnus, having freed himself from prison, withdrew with his son to Norway. But he did not live long after that, because in 1374 December 1 day he drowned in Blomfierden at Longholmen near Strömstad in Boguslen, when during a great storm he wanted to move there by ship. " That is, we have indications for Blomfjord near Lungholm, not far from Stremstad in Bohuslän.
Russian historians of the last century, referring to Swedish authors and chroniclers, call the place of death of Magnus “Bolmefjord Bay at Lundholm”. Karamzin writes that the king "drowned in Gotland near Blomesholm." Some Swedish and Russian historians, repeating the circumstances and date of the death of Magnus Erickson, say that he died "near Bergen in Norway." The Finnish scientist Heikki Kirkinen, referring to the Swedish medieval chronicles, indicates the place of death of Magnus as "Lyngholm in Bemelfjord near Bergen." And in the medieval Swedish "Chronicle of Visby" it is said that Magnus died "on an island called Lyngholm, near the city of Bergen." The modern Swedish author Oke Ulmarx, in his study devoted to describing the circumstances of the death of all Swedish kings, talking about Magnus Erickson, also speaks of Blomsholm in Bohuslän. In the same place, on the territory of the Shee estate, he writes, there is an area that is still called the "Tomb of Magnus Smek". Which of all these indications is the most accurate, and where did Magnus die?
The town of Stremstad is easy to find on modern maps- it lies on the shores of the Bohus Bay, a few kilometers from the Norwegian-Swedish border, in the area that is called Bohuslan in Sweden.
Tomb of Magnus Smak in Schee, near Strömstad in Sweden.
But why, then, is the city of Bergen indicated in a number of historical sources? After all, it is located in western Norway, and hundreds of kilometers separate it from the coast of Bohuslan. Let's try to figure it out. The names appearing in various sources are consonant and revolve around the words "Blom" ("Bolm", "Bemel") and "Lyng" ("Lung", "Lund") and the second part in the form of either the word "fjord" (bay), or "Holm" (island). The town of Blomsholm, which Ulmarx points to, still exists in Bohuslän, an estate located in Schee, five kilometers northeast of Stremstad. That was probably what Dalin had in mind. However, the Swedish Encyclopedia says that the estate was created at the beginning of the 17th century and was founded by a certain Anders Blom. Apparently, on behalf of the founder, it received the name Blomsholm. This means that in the XIV century, when Magnus died, and even in the XV and XVI centuries, when the Swedish chronicles were compiled describing this event, the name of this in Bohuslan did not yet exist. So the most reliable indications are contained in the earliest evidence - medieval chronicles, naming the vicinity of Bergen in Norway. The names appearing in various sources are, apparently, variations of the same name, especially since seventy kilometers south of Bergen there is a bay, which today is called Bemlafjord and which most likely appears in ancient chronicles. And the rest are derivatives of them, adapted for a more familiar sound or for a more well-known geographical name. This, probably, happened with Blomsholm near Stremstad, to which, already in the 18th century, the glory of the place where Magnus died was transferred. The real place of death of Magnus is, as indicated in the oldest chronicles, "the island of Lyngholm in the Bemelfjord near Bergen."
Be that as it may, one thing is clear: the name of the Norwegian fjord is consonant with the Polnaya river from the Russian chronicles, and Dalin was absolutely right in his comments to the Manuscript. By the way, PP Vyazemsky also drew attention to this consonance more than a hundred years ago: “King Magnus Erickson, who destroyed Karelia in the XIV century, drowned in the waters of Bolmfiord, which resembled the Polnaya River in consonance”.
However, having established the exact place of the death of Magnus Erickson, we only partially shed light on the problem over which historians racked their brains in the last century - where does the Full River flow? The fact is that this toponym is also found in other Russian chronicles, and already without any connection with Magnus.
IN various lists XIV - XV centuries, included in the "Novgorod Chronicle of the Elder and Younger", under the year 6826 (that is, 1318) we find the following lines: Prince of Sumy and Piskupl ... "
"Sum" is the old Russian name for one of the Finnish tribes - Suomi. This means that the Complete River from this chronicle is located somewhere in Finland. In the geographical index to the "Novgorod First Chronicle" and it says: "p. Complete in Sumy land. " Heikki Kirkinen interprets this chronicle even more definitely: it speaks of the city of Turku and the episcopal castle (hence “Piskupl”) at the mouth of the Aurajoki river, which means “complete” in Finnish.
Vyazemsky also pointed to this when he wrote that "the River Full, in Finnish Aurajoki, is mentioned during the Russian raid in 1318, during which the Russians burned down the city of Abo or Türkyu." And most likely precisely because of the consonance of the name of the fjord in the North Sea and the Russian name of the river in Finland, which is well known to Novgorodians and is also in the zone of constant clashes with the Swedes, in the "Magnus' Manuscript" the Full River appears as a place where after the shipwreck washed ashore unfortunate Magnus.
But what kind of Spassky monastery, which was then identified with Valaam, appears in the chronicle?
In Turku on Aurajoki at that time there was no Spassky monastery - there was only the monastery of St. Olava. But here's what's interesting: Christian Lange's book "History of Norwegian Monasteries" mentions a certain monastery on an island in Blomfjord, not far from Bergen. The name of this monastery has not survived, but it is known that it existed since 1230. There was a church of Christ, but later it was named after St. Olava. Most likely it was this monastery that turned into the “monastery of St. Spas "on the river Polnaya.
The monks tried to confirm the authenticity of Magnus's grave on Valaam by its very existence: they say, “the grave cannot be invented”. The writer Vasily Nemirovich-Danchenko also notes that "they refer to the fact that the Swedes, who most persistently reject the described fact, nevertheless cannot indicate where Magnus's body is." This is really so: no one knows the place of the real burial of Magnus.
According to Ulmarx's version, Magnus's servants managed to drag him to the sand near Shee, but he died shortly after. In which church, writes this modern Swedish author, Magnus was buried is unknown. As for the "Tomb of Magnus Smek" by the seashore in Schee, Ulmarx himself writes that the monuments resembling the burial in this area date back to the Bronze Age and are a thousand years older than King Magnus, and only "popular love and compassion connected his name with the most impressive of its kind on the west coast of Sweden. "
Maybe Magnus drowned and disappeared altogether without a trace, leaving no grave behind? But here is what Olaf Dalin writes: "On this occasion, none of the drowned were found, except for him alone (Magnus. - Author), and therefore the common people considered him a saint." Doesn't it sound like a Valaam legend? In addition, the historian adds:
"They think that his body was placed in the monastery of Warngham" ( male monastery in Skaraborg, West Getland, founded in 1150 - Ed.). This is even more reminiscent of the Valaam traditions. And therefore, Vyazemsky's suggestion looks all the more curious: “We know almost nothing about the relationship of monasteries in the Finnish and Swedish lands to the Greek Church; Russian and Swedish monasteries in the XIII and XIV centuries could be in such a connection with each other that the events taking place in one monastery were regarded as their own. "
The answer ... in Palestine?
The birth of the legend, which fell into the "Manuscript", and then of the Valaam legend, their confusion was accompanied by and. contributed, as we can see, a lot of mistakes, a lot of similar names and place names, consonance and simply confusion of some concepts, events and persons with others.
Let's remember how many variants of the name of the bay in which Magnus drowned are found! And as soon as our domestic authors have not called for centuries the son of Magnus Haakon, the Norwegian king who rescued his father from prison: Gakun, Sakun, Isaacun, Iakun and Gakvin.
There is another version: the legends about Magnus were combined with another legend - about the Norwegian king Olaf I Tryggvasson, a very real person, but half-legendary. He was born in 965, was captured by the Estonians, then grew up in exile in Novgorod at the prince's court. Returning to his homeland, Olaf became the leader of the Norman squads and converted to Christianity during the 994 campaign to the British Isles. Opposing the pagan king Hokun and the clan nobility - the Jarls, in 995 he became king of Norway under the name Olaf I Tryggvasson and undertook a mass baptism of the Norwegians.
On September 9, 1000, Olaf, on his ship "Long Serpent", at the head of a flotilla of 60 ships, entered the naval battle with the combined fleet of Denmark and Sweden under the command of the Danish king Sven. It happened at the islet of Svold, or Svolder (today it is called Greifswald), which is off the coast of the large island of Rügen. Olaf's allies betrayed him, and he found himself alone against his enemies. The Norwegian king fearlessly entered the battle and fought to the last. When Olaf realized that defeat was obvious, he, to avoid the humiliation of being captured, threw himself overboard and drowned.
Two sagas were composed about him in a Benedictine monastery in Iceland. According to one, Olaf turned out to be a good swimmer. He threw off his chain mail and kept on the water until he was picked up by a nearby Wendian ship. And then Olaf was seen in many countries, including the Holy Land. In Jerusalem, the patriarch received him with honors and gave him a province to reign. So Olaf received three castles and two cities, which he ruled, taking monastic orders. He ended his life only in 1030 as the abbot of one of the monasteries in Sinai, where his compatriots even saw him. According to another version, Olaf lived in an Egyptian monastery as early as 1057.
The writer Ivan Shmelev, who studied Valaam legends, writes: “Perhaps the Valaam chronicler heard about this legend, maybe the news of Magnus's death in the waves of the sea reached Valaam - and now the fruit of these two legends was the legend that Magnus II did not die in sea, and like Trigvason, sailed to the island, but not Rugen, but Balaam, and accepted the schema, just as Trigvason became the abbot ... Maybe these two legends merged into one, were written down, and then the grave appeared due to ignorance monks who did not understand the historical data ”.
It will be interesting to note here that on the island of Rügen, near which the Norwegian king died, there is also the town of Bergen, as in Norway, where Magnus died ...
The great historian's oversight
The first mention in the literature of a "Swedish" grave on Valaam, we find in Academician N. Ozeretskovsky in the book "A Journey on the Ladoga and Onega Lakes", where he describes his visit to Valaam in the summer of 1785. It says: “Near the monastery there is a whole maple grove, in which the hermits are shown the grave of a certain Swedish Prince. This grave does not have any gravestone and, therefore, no inscription, but a thin large slab lies on it, which, through the negligence of the inhabitants, was crushed by a horse. According to the tales of the monks, the Prince buried there was brought to Valaam by a strong storm and, having lost his ship near this island, remained on it until the end of his life ... "
This description contains a number of very important points. First, the academician writes about "some Swedish prince", but does not mention a word about Magnus. And secondly, he says that the grave "does not have ... any inscription."
We find a mention of this grave in the "Geographical Dictionary Of the Russian state"A. Schekatov, published in 1801, in the description of the Valaam Monastery. Shchekatov literally, but without reference to the source, reproduces the text from the book of Ozeretskovsky, only he is talking not about the "prince", but about the "sovereign", but, what is important to note, the name of Magnus still does not appear.
However, at the end of the 18th century on Valaam itself, the grave was already attributed to Magnus and it was believed that it was their abode that received the repentant Swedish king who had converted to Orthodoxy!
In 1791, in response to a request from the Chief Prosecutor of the Synod, Count A.I. Musin-Pushkin, who began collecting manuscripts and ancient books from all churches and monasteries for the Synod, the hegumen of the Valaam monastery Nazariy replied: “We announce to you that in 1374 the Swedish king was buried by the name of Magnush, in holy baptism Gregory. His life was alive in this monastery for 3 days. At the same time, at will, they tonsured him into the schema, and thus ended his life. And it was made on it in a cemetery above the ground by a small stone tower, above there is also a slab and there is no inscription on the slab. And why is the rumor that he is buried here, that is, some part of a small story, with this report, this is sent to you. " The “Manuscript of Magnush” was attached to the “report” with the note: “We have no more information about this king”. Since the Russian chronicles had not yet been published in 1791, Nazariy's statement with an ancient document in addition looked like a clear sensation.
The first historian to connect the Valaam grave with the name of Magnus with reference to his handwritten "will" in 1817, and not someone, but N.M. Karamzin! In the place of the notes to the fourth volume of the "History of the Russian State", where he speaks of "Magnush's Manuscript" and retells it briefly, for some reason he introduces Valaam into his account of the chronicle, calling the Spassky Monastery from the Manuscript "Valaam Spasskaya Abode". And then he writes: "Meanwhile, in the Savior Transfiguration Monastery on Valaam, the island of Lake Ladoga, in a maple grove, they show a high burial mound where a thin crushed slab lies: legend says that Magnus is buried there!"
From the words of Karamzin, it becomes clear that he used the description of the grave given by Ozeretskovsky (possibly original, but most likely in Shchekatov's presentation). But Karamzin also has something new that his predecessors do not have: “a high burial“ mound ”(a historian's thought or some other, unknown to us eyewitness testimony?).
As a result, two completely new nuances simultaneously arise in Karamzin's work - he calls the Spassky monastery on the Polnaya river Valaam, and attributes the grave on Valaam, which Ozeretskovsky told about, to Magnus. It is quite possible that, while working on his History, he compared two documents - the Manuscript in the Sophia Chronicle and the story of the grave of a certain Swedish sovereign at Shchekatov. It is also likely that the historian had access to the materials of the Synod, where he got acquainted with the "report" of Nazarius. And although Karamzin to the "Manuscript" as to historical document reacted critically, he made a mistake, without any reservations introducing the island of Valaam into his retelling.
So, most likely since then, with the light hand of Karamzin, the legend of Magnus on Valaam has gone for a walk. At least, for example, in the 1889 edition of the "Chronicle collection, called the Chronicle of Abraham", in the geographical index "the monastery of the Holy Savior" from the "Manuscript" appears - without any reservations - as the "Valaam Spassky monastery".
We find the following evidence of the Valaam grave from the famous Finnish philologist, collector of the Kalevala runes, Elias Lennrot. Having visited Valaam in 1828, he already writes about the grave of Magnus. He speaks of it with obvious disbelief, and he is talking about a wooden slab, which looks no more than 15 - 20 years old, since it is in good condition and the letters written with a brush have not worn off at all.
Lennroth's testimony is extremely important: in 1828 the slab was already clearly different than at the end of the 18th century - not broken stone and already having a text in which the name of Magnus is directly indicated. The monks of Valaam, apparently, decided to replace the crushed slab with a new one. If in 1828 it looked like "fifteen or twenty", that is, it was made somewhere in 1813, is it possible to assume that it was Karamzin's oversight that prompted them to replace the stove? As is known, Karamzin first read the manuscript of the History in 1810, and on March 15, 1816 the work was completed. Giving the Valaam legend a new turn with the release of the Karamzin "History" in 1817, perhaps, forced the monks to hasten to designate an unnamed burial.
In the middle of the 19th century, the tombstone was replaced by a stone one, but the inscription on it remained the same. Judging by the photographs of Magnus's grave in the first half of our century, a rather high tombstone has appeared there - at least the slab is clearly not on the ground ...
This slab, apparently, did not change until the 50s - 60s of our century, when it was broken and only one fragment remained from it.
The thoughts of the holy fathers
If it is not Magnus Erickson, nicknamed Smek, who rests under this mysterious slab in the Valaam monastic cemetery, then who? And not a cenotaph (The cenotaph (or cenotaph) is a monument erected not at the burial site.) Is this?
The Valaam holy fathers extremely jealously protected the legend of Magnus-Gregory from any criticism and even mistrust. “The tradition is confirmed by the grave itself,” says one of the books published by the monastery at the end of the last century. "It is impossible to imagine any reasonable motivation to invent a grave."
So what were the “reasonable motives” to “invent” this grave? Since the history of the island until the 18th century is very vague and there is no precise data and reliable evidence of the monastery's antiquity and confirmation of the glorious pages of its distant past, the holy fathers apparently decided to “acquire” Magnus's grave. She both confirmed the antiquity of the monastery, and turned it into a monk of its worst enemy.
And most likely it happened in the very early XIX century, when the monks "took advantage" of Karamzin's oversight, which failed and famous historians... However, the monks most likely did not really “invent” the grave, but only “registered” another person in it. But ... who?
First of all, we note: over the centuries, the monastery was repeatedly ravaged by the Swedes, and each time they destroyed it to the ground, and there are simply no monuments on the island before the end of the 18th century. So talking about the possibility of preserving the burials of the 14th century on Valaam is simply not serious.
The last time the Swedes were on the island-monastery was in 1611. It was then that one of the Swedes could die or perish on the island. The grave could well have survived since then, but until a certain time it did not have an inscription - for the monks, the Swede resting in it was nameless. According to Heikki Kirkinen, the legend connected the grave of some Swedish prince with King Magnus, and it is no longer possible to establish his name. There are other opinions, for example, that the monk Joseph Sharov, “the builder of the Valaam monastery,” who was on the island in the 1920s and 1930s, is buried in the grave.
In October 1723, Sharov with two more servants of the Valaam Monastery sailed from Ladoga by boat to Valaam. A storm broke out, the boat capsized, the servants drowned. Day Sharov was left to the will of the waves. Then he was rescued. For two days he was on the verge of life and death. But on the third day Sharov felt better and went to Valaam. Perhaps this is a legend, but it was recorded in the book “The Unsweeping Adventure of the Valaam Monastery of the Builder Joseph Sharov” published in 1792. Sharov was a rather prominent and well-known figure, but over time, after his death, they could forget about him, and the memory of his adventures could be correlated with the legend of Magnus. The existence in the monastery of a venerated, but unknown whose grave, in combination with the indication of the Valaam monastery “found” by the monks in the Russian chronicles, was the reason for the appearance of the tombstone of Magnus on the island.
The unnamed tomb really turned into the "Tomb of Magnus" thanks to the monastery tradition, which grew out of other legends. The true facts from the life of the Swedish king received in the "Manuscript" a certain emotional and political coloring, mixed with fiction, and the Bolmfjord near Bergen turned into the Polnaya river, a river familiar to Russians in Finland. Then Karamzin identified the Monastery of the Holy Savior from the same "Manuscript" with the Valaam Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery. Valaam monks took up this version, having already a "ready" grave. Facts about the Swedish campaigns on Valaam, about the failure of Magnus's fleet on Ladoga and the storm in which he fell with his ships in the Baltic during an unsuccessful campaign against the Novgorodians, also merged into the birth of the legend about Magnus. The similarity and consonance of names and names, the proximity of destinies played a role different people... In the legend of Magnus, the legends about Olaf Tryggwasson were probably reflected in some way.
The absence of Magnus's grave in Sweden or Norway, the legend that his body was taken to one of the monasteries after a shipwreck, further confuses the legend, makes it even more mysterious.
As a result, apparently, the original Valaam grave was connected with such a multi-layered and intricate tradition, and some Valaam poet immortalized it in poetic form on a fake tombstone, which has haunted historians for more than a century and a half.
Yes, now only a splinter remained of the tombstone, and not in the cemetery, but in the museum. But even today, a monk who leads a tour of the monastery and reads his lecture in English for foreigners will certainly say that the Swedish king Magnus is buried in the local cemetery. And here, of course, it is not the "ignorance of the monks" that is to blame, but the monastic traditions.
Valaam monastery
Photo by Viktor Gritsyuk
Who is King Magnus and what happened to him? In 1316 in Sweden, a son named Magnus was born to the family of Duke Eric Magnusson and Princess Ingeborg, daughter of the Norwegian king Hakon V. In 1319, Birger, the uncle of Magnus, was dethroned from the Swedish throne, and the three-year-old child became king. In the same year, his grandfather, the Norwegian king Hakon V, died, and our hero received another throne. In Sweden, he was officially called Magnus II, and in Norway - Magnus VII.
The seizure of the lands of the Lord of Veliky Novgorod was an old dream of the majority of Swedish feudal lords. The victory of Alexander Nevsky on the Neva River in 1240 was only an episode in a series endless wars Novgorod with Sweden. For example, on September 9, 1284, the Novgorodians killed the Swedish army of the commander Trunda at the mouth of the Neva. Very few managed to leave.
The Novgorodians did not want a long war and agreed to give the Swedes half of the Karelian Isthmus in the direction from south to north. This was the ancient tribal border between Karelians and Finns. Thus, all of central Finland remained behind Veliky Novgorod.
A quarter of a century after the conclusion of the treaty, peace at least survived, but in the end, Magnus Erickson began a new war. On August 6, 1348, the king managed to capture the Oreshek fortress (future Shlisselburg). Magnus did not dare to winter on the Neva, he left a garrison of 800 people in Oreshka and went to Sweden. As soon as the king left, on August 15, a strong Novgorod army appeared at the fortress. A thousand soldiers were sent to "clean up" the vicinity of the town of Korela from the Swedes. The newcomers were killed there together with their commander Luder.
Soon the Swedish army remained only in Oreshka, but his turn came. On February 24, 1349, Russian squads went to the assault. They managed to set fire to the wooden walls of the fortress and a number of buildings inside it. Some of the Swedes were killed, and the rest were taken prisoner and sent to Novgorod. At the beginning of the summer of 1350, Magnus made a new campaign against the Novgorod possessions.
According to Swedish sources, the king's fleet arrived at the mouth of the Narova River, but after the approach of the Novgorod army, the ships left for the Gulf of Finland and almost all of them died during the storm. Magnus himself barely survived and with the remnants of the army reached Sweden. In the Novgorod chronicle under 1350, there is the following message on this score: "And the German army (drowned) in the sea." But according to the documents of the Valaam Monastery, Magnus not only escaped during the storm, but later turned up not in Sweden, but ... on an island in Lake Ladoga.
There is a version that the king was picked up and left by Russian monks from another monastery, and only then the unfortunate conqueror arrived on Valaam. Magnus took monastic vows under the name of Gregory and died with the rank of schema monk in 1371 at the Valaam monastery.
From ancient times, only a mysterious grave in the old monastery cemetery has survived here, in which, according to legend, Magnus Erickson is buried. The first to mention this unusual tombstone was Academician Ozeretskovsky, who visited Valaam in 1785. He wrote: “I saw the grave of a certain Swedish prince. This grave does not have any tombstone, but a thin large slab lies on it, which, through the negligence of the inhabitants, was crushed by a horse.
According to the tales of the monks, the once buried prince was brought to Valaam by a strong storm and, having lost his ship on this island, remained there until the end of his life. "
P.S. In Sweden, the grave of Magnus II does not exist: according to Swedish chronicles, he drowned ...
A bit of mysticism:
There is official ecclesiastical mysticism of the East and West, Orthodox mysticism and Catholic mysticism. The difference in the structure of mystical experience explains the difference in the world paths of the Orthodox East and the Catholic West. There is a profound difference in the original relationship to God and Christ. For the Catholic West, Christ is an object, He is outside the human soul, He is an object of aspiration, an object of love and imitation. Therefore, the Catholic religious experience is the pulling of a person upward, towards God. The Catholic soul is gothic. In her, coldness is combined with passion, with fieryness. The concrete, evangelical image of Christ, the passion of Christ is intimately close to the Catholic soul. The Catholic soul is passionately in love with Christ, imitates His passions, accepts stigmata in its body. Catholic mysticism is sensual through and through, there is longing and anguish in it, for it sensual imagination is the way. The anthropological element is intensified in it. The Catholic soul exclaims: my, my Jesus, my loved one, my beloved. In a Catholic church, as in a Catholic soul, there is a coldness - as if God himself does not descend into the church and into the soul. And the soul passionately, painfully strives upward, to its object, to the object of love. Catholic mysticism is romantic, full of romantic longing. Catholic mysticism is hungry, there is no saturation in it, it knows not marriage, but falling in love. The Catholic attitude towards God as an object, as an object of striving, creates the external dynamism of Catholicism. The Catholic experience creates a culture that is imprinted in love with God, yearning for God. In Catholicism, energy is poured into the path of historical deeds, it does not remain inside, since God is not taken into the heart - the heart strives for God along the paths of world dynamics. The Catholic experience gives birth to beauty from spiritual hunger and unsatisfied religious passion.
For the Orthodox East, Christ is a subject, he is within the human soul, the soul receives Christ within itself, into the depths of its heart. In Orthodox mysticism, falling in love with Christ and imitating Him is impossible. The Orthodox experience is prostration before God, not stretching. The Orthodox Church, like the soul, is so opposite to the Gothic. In Orthodoxy, there is neither cold nor passion. In Orthodoxy it is warm, even hot. For Orthodox mysticism, the concrete, evangelical image of Christ is not so close. Orthodox mysticism is not sensual, it considers sensuality to be "charm", rejects imagination as a false path. In Orthodoxy, one cannot say: my Jesus, dear, beloved. Christ descends into the Orthodox church and into the Orthodox soul and warms it. And there is no tormenting passion in Orthodox mysticism. Orthodoxy is not romantic, it is realistic, sober. Sobriety is the mystical path of Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is satiated, spiritually rich. The mystical Orthodox experience is marriage, not falling in love. The Orthodox attitude towards God as a subject that is taken into the depths of one's heart, the inner spirituality of this attitude does not create dynamics outside, everything is directed towards inner communion with God. Orthodox mystical experience is not conducive to culture, does not create beauty. In Orthodox mystical experience there is a kind of dumbness for outside world, irrelevance. Orthodox energy does not overflow onto the path of history. The satiety of the Orthodox experience does not create outside, a person does not strain and does not stretch. There is a great mystery hidden in this difference in the paths of religious experience. And both paths are truly Christian.
There is officially Orthodox and officially Catholic mysticism, but the nature of mysticism is over-confessional. Mysticism always lies deeper than confessional church strife and opposites. But types of mystical experiences can generate church divisions. Only a deepening into mysticism can revive church life, counteract the mortification of the visible church. Living roots church life- in mysticism. Everyday churchliness remains on the surface, on the periphery. The church, embodied in the physical plane of history, is always peripheral. And into the depths of mysticism, one must move away from the peripheral ecclesiasticality, not only in order to revive religious life, but also in order to investigate the nature of that mysticism, which, perhaps, should be rejected. There is a mystical experience that wants to return to the state of initial peace in the bosom of God and rejects all movement, all creative dynamics, i.e. the very meaning of the world divine development. Until now, mysticism has been the product of individual individuals; it has remained accidental and hidden. Now the time has come for a universal, objective and revealed mysticism. Revealing mysticism is characteristic of our time. And time imposes a duty to realize what mysticism can be addressed to the creative future.
Back in 1974, I had the first time to visit the Valaam Monastery. True, at that time the ancient monastery was turned into a home for the disabled. However, the old monastery cemetery survived, and one of the inhabitants of the island on Ladoga brought me to the grave with an old cracked slab, saying that the remains of the Swedish king Magnus II were buried under it. Honestly, I ignored this information, considering it a local legend.
A quarter of a century later, while working on the book The Northern Wars of Russia, I recalled that trip and decided to mention the legend I had heard, then writing something like the following: "In fact, the Swedish king was buried" But it turned out that there is no royal grave in Sweden ... More precisely, it was in the form of a pile of large stones on the seashore, and in the 19th century tourists were taken there. But later, after excavating the grave, archaeologists came to the conclusion that this is a Bronze Age burial. According to the Norse chronicle, King Magnus drowned in the sea near Bergen.
EPISODES OF LONG HISTORY
However, who is King Magnus and what happened to him? In 1316 in Sweden, a son named Magnus was born to the family of Duke Eirik Magnusson and Princess Ingeborg, daughter of the Norwegian king Hakon V. In 1319, Birger, the uncle of Magnus, was dethroned from the Swedish throne, and the three-year-old child became king. In the same year, his grandfather, the Norwegian king Hakon V, died, and our hero received another throne. At the same time, he was officially called Magnus II in Sweden, and Magnus VII in Norway.
At first, Magnus's mother was a regent. But in 1327 she married the Duke of Gotland, Knut Porze, and lost power in both kingdoms and influence over her son. Now the young king was ruled by a board of trustees, led by Birger Person. In the year of the accession of Magnus, Persona's daughter, 16-year-old Birgitta (Brigitte), married Prince Alpha. After the death of her husband, Birgitta was seized by religious exaltation. For the rest of her life, the inconsolable widow was seized by two manias - the crusade to the East and the creation of "mixed monasteries."
For many, many centuries, Christian monasteries were either female or male. Birgitta believed that faith would help a person "to conquer his nature." In the monasteries she founded, women and men settled approximately equally. What happened there - I propose to judge for the readers themselves.
An ordinary person in the XIV century could easily go to the stake for promoting such ideas. But Birgitta had three important trump cards: first, a huge fortune; secondly, the influence on the young king, and, finally, the seizure of the lands of the Lord of Veliky Novgorod was an old dream of the majority of Swedish feudal lords.
To be honest, the victory of Alexander Nevsky on the Neva River in 1240 was just an episode in a series of endless wars between Novgorod and Sweden. For example, on September 9, 1284, the Novgorodians killed the Swedish army of the commander Trunda at the mouth of the Neva. Very few managed to leave.
As a rule, following the next Swedish invasion, the Novgorod abyssal boats were announced in the Gulfs of Finland and Bothnia. So, in May 1318, Russian ships sailed to the Abo-Aland skerries and along the "Full River" (Aurajoki) ascended to Abo (now Turku) - the then capital of Finland. On May 23, 1318, the city was taken and thoroughly destroyed, in particular, the Abov Cathedral was burned down. The Novgorodians seized the church tax collected over 5 years from all over Finland, intended to be shipped to Rome, and then safely returned to the mouth of the Neva by sea and, as the chronicle says, "came to Novgorod in good health."
The Swedish chronicles are full of complaints about the "bloodthirsty Russians." Here is an entry under the year 1322: "George, the great king of the Russ, besieged the Vyborg castle with great force on the day of St. Clara." Modern Finnish historians estimate the number of the Novgorod army at 22 thousand people. In fact, a serving Novgorod prince Yuri Danilovich came to Vyborg with several hundred vigilantes. Vyborg had bedrooms, but Yuri failed to take the stone castle.
On August 12, 1323, on Orekhovy Island at the source of the Neva, the Swedes concluded "eternal peace" with Novgorod. The Novgorodians did not want a long war and agreed to give the Swedes half of the Karelian Isthmus in the direction from south to north. Further, the border went to the basin of Lake Saimaa, and then to the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia, where the Pusayoki River flows into it. This was the ancient tribal border between the Karelians and the Finns - Sumyu (Suomi), and it was confirmed and preserved. Thus, the whole of central Finland remained with Lord Novgorod the Great.
NEW WAR
A quarter of a century after the conclusion of the treaty, peace has been preserved at the very least. But in the end, Birgitta, a kind of "Swedish Rasputin", convinced Magnus to start a new war. On August 6, 1348, the king managed to capture the Oreshek fortress (future Shlisselburg).
Magnus did not dare to spend the winter on the Neva. He left a garrison of 800 men in Oreshka and went to Sweden. As soon as the king left, on August 15 a strong Novgorod army appeared at the fortress. A thousand soldiers were sent to "clean up" the vicinity of the town of Korela from the Swedes. The newcomers were killed there together with their commander Lyudka (apparently, Luder). Soon the Swedish army remained only in Oreshka. But his turn has come. On February 24, 1349, Russian squads went to the assault. They managed to set fire to the wooden walls of the fortress and a number of buildings inside it. Some of the Swedes burned down, some were killed, and the rest were taken prisoner and sent to Novgorod.
At the beginning of the summer of 1350, Magnus made a new campaign against the Novgorod possessions. According to Swedish sources, the king's fleet arrived at the mouth of the Narova River. However, after the approach of the Novgorod army, the ships left for the Gulf of Finland and almost all of them perished during the storm. Magnus himself barely survived and with the remnants of the army reached Sweden. In the Novgorod chronicle under 1350, there is the following message on this score: "And the German army (drowned) in the sea."
INOC GREGORY AND SAINT BIRGITTA
But according to the documents of the Valaam Monastery, Magnus not only escaped during the storm, but later showed up not in Sweden, but ... on an island in Lake Ladoga. The version is not excluded that at first the king was picked up and left by Russian monks from another monastery, and only then the unfortunate conqueror arrived on Valaam. Magnus took monastic vows under the name of Gregory and died with the rank of schema monk in 1374 at the Valaam monastery.
Was that how it was? A number of circumstantial evidence confirms the correctness of the Valaam documents (among which was the plan of the old cemetery indicating the location of the graves; later the monks were buried in a different place). However, a 100% guarantee can be given only by examining the DNA from the burial on Valaam and comparing it with the DNA of the remains of Magnus's relatives in Sweden. Russian archaeologists offered to conduct an examination of the Swedes, but they flatly refused.
Perhaps someone will treat the position of the Swedish authorities with understanding: why should such a rich but thrifty nation spend money on clarifying the "legends of deep antiquity"?
But, alas, in 2003 millions of euros were found in the kingdom for pompous celebrations in honor of the 700th anniversary of St. Birgitta. The fact is that Birgitta died in 1377 and was buried in a monastery in Pirita, a few kilometers from Revel (now Tallinn). The "mixed" monasteries created by her were immediately closed. Nevertheless, in 1391, the Pope canonized Birgitta for active preaching of the crusades against schismatics, that is, Orthodox. The temple where she was buried was destroyed in 1577 by the troops of Ivan the Terrible during the Livonian War (1558-1583). But this was no longer of little interest to the Swedes, Germans and Estonians, since by that time they had become Protestants.
In 1718, a magnificent statue of Venus (Aphrodite) was unearthed in Rome - a Roman copy of a Greek statue of the 3rd century. BC. The find became the property of Pope Clement XI. The rumor about Venus reached St. Petersburg. Tsar Peter Alekseevich offered the Pope a large sum for her. But Clement was a great lover of antiquities and female charms and flatly refused to sell the statue. Then Peter I suggested that the Pope exchange the statue of the pagan goddess for the relics of St. Birgitta. Can you imagine the expression on Clement's face ?! I had to agree, and the statue went to the banks of the Neva. At one time, the sculpture stood in the Tauride Palace with Prince Grigory Potemkin, for which it received the name Venus Tauride. Now she is in the Hermitage.
As for Saint Birgitta, after the confusion with Venus, the Roman authorities forgot about her for a long time. They remembered about Birgit only after the collapse of the USSR (why would?). In November 1999, John Paul II consecrated a sculpture of St. Birgitta in the Vatican, which he called the guardian angel of Europe. 23 people from Estonia, headed by the Deputy Speaker of the Estonian Parliament Tunne Kelam, arrived in the Vatican to participate in this ceremony. The five-meter statue of St. Birgitta was installed in one of the outer niches of St. Peter's Basilica.
In 2003, in Sweden, King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden, as well as the presidents of Finland, Latvia, Estonia and 1400 guests from different countries the world.
So, the schema king, who could become a symbol of the reconciliation of the West with the East, is not needed by either the rulers or the church. But what is in demand is a militant, although not quite sexually normal, nun, who in her "Revelation" accurately pointed the way to "Christian unity": "to start with admonitions, and in case of failure to act by force."
Articles about NorwayMagnus III
Magnus III the Barefoot, or Barefoot (O. Scand. Magnús berfœtt) (1073 - 23 August 1103) - King of Norway (1093 - 1103), son of Olaf III the Quiet and concubine of Torah. The reign of Magnus III marked an attempt to revive the aggressive expansion of the Vikings and was aimed at creating a Norwegian empire in the Irish Sea and the northern part of the British Isles. After the death of Magnus in Ulster, the empire he created collapsed. There are several versions of Magnus III's nickname. The most common and most plausible: for the adherence to wearing Gaelic clothing, the prototype of the kilt.
King of Norway
In 1093, after the death of his father Olaf III the Pacific, Magnus was proclaimed king of Norway. However, the inhabitants of Oppland, gathered at the tinge, proclaimed Hakon Magnusson - the son of Magnus II, a cousin of Magnus III, as king.
Hakon then went to the Norwegian capital, Trondheim, where he demanded that Norway be divided between himself and Magnus III, as their fathers had previously done. This requirement was found to be fair. Having become king, Hakon recruited a squad, and also canceled a number of taxes and introduced some improvements to the laws, which won the full favor of the bonds. Hakon's behavior displeased his co-ruler Magnus III, and a conflict arose between the cousins.
At the end of 1093, Hakon and Magnus began to prepare for war against each other and gather troops. However, in the winter of 1094, when Hakon Magnusson died unexpectedly, his supporters did not lay down their arms. Led by Jarl Thorir of Steig, Hakon's tutor, the rebels defeated the militia in Northern Norway and plundered the coast. Magnus III quickly suppressed this uprising. Jarl Thorir and many of the conspirators were executed, and the rest were severely punished. Magnus the king now ruled the country alone. He established peace in the country and cleared it of the Vikings and robbers. He was a determined, belligerent and active husband, and in everything he looked more like Harald, his grandfather, than his father. (Snorri Sturluson. "Circle of the Earth" The Saga of Magnus the Hololeg)
Wars in Scandinavia (1094-1100)
Having established a foothold in Norway, Magnus III began to pursue an aggressive policy towards neighboring states - Denmark and Sweden. The stumbling block was the border disputes at the mouth of the Göta-Elv River, along which the borders of the Scandinavian kingdoms passed at that time. In 1094, Magnus raided the Danish province of Halland, where he marched with fire and sword, capturing rich booty. In 1095, with a large army, Magnus III made a campaign in the Swedish province of West Gotaland and forced the locals to swear allegiance to him.
In a strategic location on the island of Collandsø, in the middle of Lake Venern, a wooden fortress was built, where a garrison was left. The very next year, King Inge I the Elder of Sweden took this fortress by storm and regained power over Western Gotaland. In 1097, Magnus again made a campaign against Sweden, but was defeated by Inge I at the Battle of Foxern.
Finally, in 1099, three rulers met on the coast of Göta-Elv: King Magnus III the Barefoot of Norway, King Inge I the Elder of Sweden and King Eric I the Good of Denmark. The parties concluded peace on condition that the inviolability of the borders was preserved. To consolidate peace, Magnus married Inge's daughter, Margaret, who was nicknamed Margaret Fredkulia ("Woman of Peace").
First British Isles campaign (1098-1099)
Magnus' next venture was the invasion of England. More than thirty years have passed since the death of King Harald III the Severe of Norway at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, but England attracted the descendants of the Vikings who dreamed of repeating the invasions of 800-860. But after the Norman conquest and the establishment of a rigid centralized royal power, England represented a powerful and formidable adversary. Therefore, as targets for his claims, Magnus III chose areas densely populated by Scandinavian settlers.
The current situation contributed to this. In the Orkney Islands, Yarl Paul and Erlend were plotting against each other in a power struggle; there was a civil war in Scotland between King Donald III and his nephew Edgar; a conflict erupted in Ireland between Norwegian settlers and the indigenous Celtic population; the kingdom of Maine and the Isles, after the death of the first king, Godred Crovan, was on the verge of collapse; in Wales, King Gwynedd II ap Keenan rebelled against the Norman barons. The emergence in these conditions of a powerful Norwegian fleet and army under the command of Magnus was doomed to success.
Invasion of the Orkney and Hebrides
Since the time of the first king of Norway, Harald the Fair-Hair, the Orkney Islands have been dependent on the Norwegian crown. However, during the "peaceful" period of the reign of Olaf the Tikhiy, the dependence of the Orkney Jarls became exclusively nominal. Arriving in 1098 to the Orkney Islands, Magnus III captured Jarls Paul and Erlend and sent them into exile in Norway. Forcing the inhabitants to swear allegiance to his son Sigurd, Magnus headed to the Hebrides. Having subjected the population of the Hebrides to the most brutal plunder and seizing rich booty, Magnus annexed these islands to his possessions. In addition, the Norwegians also ravaged the coast of Ireland and Scotland.
The monastery of St. Columbus, located on the island of Iona, was taken by Magnus under his protection. On the Isle of Bute, the wooden Rothesay Castle was built, where a strong garrison was left. The fortress was subsequently rebuilt several times and has survived to this day.
Capture of the Isle of Man
The next target was the Isle of Man. The arrival of Magnus III ended civil war on the island. Having arrested the sons of Godred Crovan - Olaf and Legman, the king of Norway led the population to an oath of allegiance. Maine became the main base for Magnus's subsequent operations. A wooden fortress, Castle Rushen, was built in the city of Castletown. Another fortress - Peel (Peel Castle) was erected on the island of St. Patrick and served until the middle of the XIII century as the residence of the rulers of Maine. Built at strategically important points, these castles were subsequently rebuilt and have survived to this day.
Scramble in Wales
While on the Isle of Man, Magnus found himself embroiled in a Welsh struggle led by Gruffydd ap Keenan against the Anglonorman invasion of Wales. In the same year, 1098, the Anglonorman army led by Hugo d'Avranches, Earl of Chester and Hugo de Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury, pursuing Gruffudd ap Keenan, invaded the island of Anglesey, but in the Menai Strait it was suddenly attacked by the Norwegian fleet. In a bloody battle, the British were defeated, and Hugh de Montgomery was killed. According to the Scandinavian sagas and Welsh chronicles, King Magnus personally killed the enemy commander with a bow. The result of this battle was the restoration of Gruffudd ap Keenan to the throne of Gwynedd and the cessation of the advance of England in North Wales until the middle of the 13th century. “Magnus then took possession of the Isle of Anglesey. It was the southernmost of the possessions that the kings of Norway have ever had. " British historians admit that Gruffydd, who has Scandinavian roots on his mother, took a vassal oath to Magnus III.
Territorial acquisitions in Scotland
After the Battle of Menai, Magnus the Barefoot headed to Scotland. In 1098, Edgar, the pretender to the throne, with the support of the English king William II the Red, practically took the throne from his uncle Donald III, but was not ready to confront the powerful Norwegian army. The parties entered into negotiations and upon their completion concluded a peace treaty. “Magnus the king should have owned all the islands that lie to the west of Scotland, if between them and the mainland it is possible to pass by a ship with a suspended steering wheel ... His people went through all the Scottish fjords and straits between the islands, inhabited and uninhabited, and made all the islands possessions king of Norway. " In addition, wishing to confirm his rights to Kintyre, the Norwegian king Magnus III ordered himself to be dragged on a boat through the narrowest isthmus of the peninsula, trying to prove that Kintyre belongs to the islands due to Norway. The Scottish king was forced to admit this loss.
After wintering in the Hebrides, Magnus III returned to Norway. His son Sigurd, whom Magnus, before leaving, marries Bidumin, the daughter of King Munster and Leinster Muirchertach Wa Briayn, rules on the lands he has conquered.
Second British Isles Campaign (1102-1103)
Having settled the internal affairs on his return to Norway, Magnus began large-scale preparations for a new campaign. Finally, with even greater strength, Magnus set out on a campaign. Ireland was his target. After the death of the High King of Ireland, Thurrdelbach Wa Briayn in 1086, a new High King was not elected. His son Muirchertach Wa Briayn, in a bitter struggle with the brothers, seized royal power in Munster and Leinster, but the kings of Ulster, Connacht and Meade refused to recognize his supremacy. The rulers of Scandinavian-Gaelic Dublin were hostile to any centralized Irish government. Together with King Magnus III, the flower of the Norse nobility set off to conquer Ireland in 1102. Having visited the Orkney Islands on the way and received reinforcements there, the army of Magnus the Holfoot landed in the Dublin area. King Muirchertach Wa Briayn came out in support of Magnus. The allies took over Dublin and the Kingdom of Meade. Next year it was Ulster's turn. Having plundered and conquered most of Ulster, King Magnus prepared to return to Norway. He only waited for the Irish to bring cattle for him to stock up on food for the journey. Meeting his warriors sent for provisions, Magnus III and his squad were ambushed. In the ensuing battle, the king was killed; almost all the noble warriors perished with him. Left without a leader, the Norwegians immediately left Ireland. Upon learning of the death of his father, Sigurd, who ruled the islands in the Irish Sea, urgently sailed to Norway to lay claim to the royal throne.
Marriage and children
Wife - Margaret Ingidotter (? -1130), daughter of King Inga I the Elder of Sweden, Queen of Norway (1100-1103). After the death of Magnus III, she married King Niels of Denmark, Queen of Denmark (1105-1130). The marriage was childless.
Children:
Son by an unknown concubine of low birth:
Eysten I Magnusson (1088-1123), King of Norway (1103-1123).
Son of Torah's concubine:
Sigurd I Magnusson (1089-1130), King of Maine and the Isles (1098-1103), King of Norway (1103-1130).
Son of the concubine Sigrid Saxedotter:
Olaf Magnusson (1099-1115), during the division of power, after the death of his father, nominally received a third of the kingdom, but the share of 4-year-old Olaf was ruled by older brothers. He died at the age of 16 without ever ascending the throne.
Son from an unknown Irish woman:
Harald Gilly (1103-1136), King of Norway (1130-1136). Harald appeared in Norway only in 1127 and declared himself the son of Magnus the Barefoot. After being tested by divine judgment, his rights were recognized by Sigurd I.
Son of Torah's concubine Saxedotter, sister of Sigrid:
Sigurd the Evil (? -1139), King of Norway (1136-1139). He declared himself the son of Magnus in 1135 and claimed the throne.
Daughter from an unknown concubine:
Ragnhild Magnusdotter (? -?), Married Harald Erickson, son of King Eric I the Good of Denmark.
Magnus III the Barefoot, or Barefoot - King of Norway
