Estonia. The Battle of the Ice Lake, also called the Battle of the Ice, Battle on the Ice (Estonian: Jäälahing; Russian: Ледовое побоище, transliterated: Ledovoje poboišče), fought on Lake Chud, near the present-day border between Russia and Estonia, by troops of the Principality of Novgorod against the Livonian Crusader forces and their allies. The defeat of the Crusaders and Danes by the Novgorod forces led by Prince Alexander Nevsky ended the phase of the Northern Crusades in which Catholic forces had attempted, around 1240, to subjugate the territories inhabited by Orthodox Slavs and pagans east of Estonia, which they had recently conquered for evangelization purposes. Historically, it was a relatively minor feat of arms, but it quickly became a symbol of Russian nationalism, like its protagonist, Prince Nevsky, who was canonized in 1547. Its modern fame is largely due to Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein’s film of the same name. Written shortly before the Second World War, the work adheres to the canons of Soviet propaganda: the knights are depicted as cruel German invaders and the Slavic forces as a mass of proletarians fighting for freedom.
