Moscow has for centuries vied for supremacy…

Moscow has for centuries vied for supremacy in Russia with Novgorod, long a great trading center with extensive holdings in northern Russia.

Novgorod’s alliance to Roman Catholic Lithuania creates great friction with the Orthodox Christians of Moscow, and the northern city’s formation of a strong alliance with Poland in 1471 prompts Moscow’s Grand Duke Ivan II to declare war.

Ivan, advancing his forces against the Novgorodans, defeats them on the Shelon River and the Shilenga River in 1475.

Novgorod, promised military aid from Poland not forthcoming, elects to surrender, granting Ivan an indemnity of over fifteen thousand rubles and the right to nominate his own archbishop for the city.

Further, Novgorod is compelled to pledge against any alliance with Lithuania.

Rebels, protesting Ivan’s title of “lord” of the Novgorod, disrupt the city in 1477.

Ivan, aided, as before, by the cities of Pskov and Tver (present Tallin), advances toward Novgorod.

After refusing to negotiate, he forces the city’s surrender when its rebellious leader resigns in January 1478, then abducts some boyars and confiscates Novgorod’s monastic estates.

In 1479, Novgorod stages another independence effort, but Ivan’s forces crush the revolt and take many of its citizens captive.