century. Some Norwegian settlers may have lived on the Kola Peninsula early on, and the Norwegians claimed control over the peninsula for centuries, notwithstanding its steady Russification. The Russian word murmasky, referring to the northern Kola coast, is derived from nordmann (“Norwegian”).
The Norwegian fortress of Vard?hus near the present-day border was built around 1300, whereas the main economic center on the Russian side came to be the Orthodox Solovki Island monastery in the White Sea. The first Russian town in the region, Kola (near the present-day Murmansk), was not founded until 1583, but soon had a Norwegian guesthouse. Perhaps during the fifteenth century, but definitely by the 1550s, another Orthodox monastery was founded in the ill-defined border region of the Pechenga Valley. The monks regularly traded with Vard?hus. Norwegian merchants, often from the ports of Bergen (with historic monopoly rights over the northern waters) and Trond-heim, regularly attended the Russian border market of Kegor, as well as Kola. However, trade with the Murman coast appears to have stagnated during the seventeenth century and been limited to local products. Merchants from Bergen and Trondheim periodically also visited the Russian port of Arkhangelsk, especially to ship sporadic Russian grain subsidies to Denmark-Norway. Conflicting territorial claims made border disputes quite common during the sixteenth century and the early seventeenth century, and the Norwegian castellan of eastern Finnmark made symbolic visits to Kola to demand tribute from the local population until 1813.
Regular commercial contacts between the neighboring coastal regions, with Vard?hus as the main center, were well established by the late seventeenth century, driven primarily by Russians. Russian flour, cloth, hides, and tallow became important products for the northern Norwegian economy. By the 1760s, Russian vessels made annual trips to the Finnmark and Troms coasts, and Russian fishing in northern Norwegian waters was common. This was countenanced with some limitations by the Danish government because of its good relations with Russia. Norwegians are known to have settled in northern Russia starting in the
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eighteenth century. The interaction between Norwegians and Russians produced a unique local pidgin language known as russenorsk, “Russian Norwegian.” The regime of open borders continued until an 1826 treaty delineated the frontier and granted two-thirds of the shared territory to Russia.
Trade in northern Norway was gradually liberalized in 1789 as part of a plan to stimulate the region’s economic development. New port towns were built and direct Russian trade with Norwegian fishermen was formally authorized. Most remaining restrictions were eliminated in 1839, and regular steamship traffic between northern Russia and Finnmark began during the 1870s. Up to 350 Russian ships visited northern Norway each year during the course of the eighteenth century. Attempts to control Russian trade and fishing in Norway became more serious during the period when Norway was under Swedish rule. All foreign fishing was formally banned in 1913.
Political relations became more tense during the nineteenth century because of Russian concern about perceived Norwegian expansionism in the Arctic. In contrast, the Norwegian administration in the United Kingdom of Sweden-Norway often found itself moderating the growing Swedish Russopho-bia. However, its pragmatism was repeatedly tempered by fears that Russia might be eyeing some of the ice-free harbors of Finnmark. The accelerating Russian settlement on the Kola Peninsula and the steady stream of immigrants to northern Norway from Russian-controlled Finland heightened the sense of alarm during the second half of the nineteenth century. The Norwegian popular mood began to favor a more nationalistic policy in the north. Systematic Norwegianization was seen as a way to effectively control the ethnically mixed territory. Russia was perceived negatively because of its authoritarianism even though it was the only great power lending active support to Norwegian independence in 1905, albeit clearly with a view to weakening Sweden. Newly independent Norway unsuccessfully sought to regain control of the Russian borderlands at the Versailles Conference.
The October Revolution led to a freeze in Russian-Norwegian relations, with devastating consequence to some northern Norweigian communities, as well as a geographic separation when Finland gained control of the Pechenga-Petsamo region. Although the Finnish threat in some ways replaced the weakened Bolshevik regime as a source of concern, diplomatic relations between Norway and the Soviet state were not established until 1924. The Norwegian government actively sought to curb the activities of leftist pro-Soviet organizations and reinforced the garrisons in northern Norway. During World War II the Norwegian government-in-exile was very worried about Soviet territorial ambitions in northern Norway. Its fears seemed confirmed when the Red Army temporarily occupied eastern Finnmark in 1944. The Soviets also claimed some of the Norwegian-controlled northern Atlantic islands (Bear Isle, Spitsbergen).
Norwegian Russophobia and a sense of vulnerability after the German occupation led to a strong cross-party consensus in favor of NATO membership in 1949. Although it continued to distrust the Soviets, the Oslo government adopted a pragmatic stance, de-emphasizing the defense of Finnmark and prohibiting the stationing of foreign troops and nuclear weapons in the country. Intergovernmental relations remained formal, and most Norwegian- Russian interaction was localized to the northern border regions. Perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet Union did a great deal to restore the historically close ties between northern Russia and Finnmark, and during the early twenty-first century there are many lively economic, political, and cultural ties. See also: COLD WAR; FINLAND; SWEDEN, RELATIONS WITH; VIKINGS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kirby, David. (1990). Northern Europe in the Early Modern Period: The Baltic World, 1492-1772. London: Longman. Kirby, David. (1995). The Baltic World, 1772-1993: Europe’s Northern Periphery in an Age of Change. London: Longman. Larsen, Karen. (1948). A History of Norway. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Libaek, Ivar. (1991). History of Norway: From the Ice Age to the Oil Age. Oslo: Grondahl and Son.
The archbishop was the highest ecclesiastical office and symbolic head of the city-Lord Novgorod the Great. The chronicles refer to him as vladyka, a term meaning “lord,” or “ruler,” reflecting his duties as the representative of the city. He resided within the
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city’s fortress (detinets), met with Western ambassadors and Russian princes, mediated disputes in the city, and officiated in the city’s main Cathedral of St. Sophia.
The Novgorodian office of bishop traditionally dates to the reign of Vladimir, who brought in Ioakim of Cherson in 989, but there is little firm evidence of its existence until the mid-1030s, when Luka Zhidyata served. The bishop received tithes from fines and wergild payments, but from the late 1130s onward a fixed income from the prince’s treasury was set. Landholding, however, constituted the basis of the church’s wealth, and by the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Novgorodian Church was the largest landholder, employing religious and secular workers and even hiring soldiers.
Following Novgorod’s independence from Kiev in 1136, the first election of the bishop occurred in 1156 when the “people of the entire town,” perhaps in a meeting of an assembly (veche), chose Arkady. However, the ability of Novgorod to select its own archbishop did not make the Church independent of the metropolitan, who still confirmed candidates. After Arkady’s death in 1163, Ilya was appointed (not elected) first archbishop of Novgorod in 1165. The next election of an archbishop occurred in 1186 when townsmen, prince, hegumens, and priests selected Gavriil, Ilya’s brother. After 1186 it became customary for the townspeople, prince, and clergy to elect their archbishops in a veche, but it is not clear whether all free Novgorodians participated. When there was no clear candidate the city utilized lots (for example, in 1229 and 1359): Three names were placed on the altar of St. Sophia and one would be chosen.
Sometime during the thirteenth century the archbishop came to preside over the Council of Lords (Sovet gospod), the highest executive and judicial body. It consisted of some fifty to sixty members, including the sitting lord mayor and chiliarch (commander of troops), former lord mayors, and current mayors of the five boroughs. The meetings took place within the archbishop’s quarters, and later in the archbishop’s Palace of Facets, constructed in 1433. The Novgorodian Judicial Charter notes that referral hearings convened in the archbishop’s quarters.
The archbishop did not directly control the city’s monasteries, which fell under the jurisdiction of one of the five district hegumens (heads of monasteries). The monasteries were ultimately under the jurisdiction of the
