Slitherine

Hei!

I just watched a video of the Battle of Neva, in YT played by Agrippa Maxentius. I mentioned to him that this battle's source lists Karelians (eastern Finnish tribe) participating in the battle together with their ally the Novgorodians. And with the invading army the source mentions two western Finnish tribes: the Tavastians and the Finns (Proper) and also Norwegians. However in the game there is only Novgorodian and Swedish armies. The source being the Primary Novgorodian Chronicles. This can be found in the Wikipedia page of the battle, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Neva
Battle of Neva is one in a long chain of a hostilities of two alliances (in practice). The Novgorodian Primary Chronicles mentions numerous raids done by the Novgorodians and the Karelians into the Tavastian lands. And then the Tavastians doing likewise raids into the Karelian lands. These were going on for 2 full centuries, first one mentioned 1042AD. Opposing the Karelians and Novgorodians was the Catholic Church fighting proxy wars. The Popes wrote several bulls where they declared protection to Christianized Finns, and urged Scandinavians and the Livonian Brothers of the Sword (later Teutonic Order) to fight the Novgorodians and not trade with them. In the land of the Finns (Proper) there was a bishopy (in the town of Turku) which belonged directly under Pope's control: it wasn't until 1245 when the Pope transferred the Finnish bishopy under the Swedish Uppsala archbishopy (five years after the Battle of Neva). The source mentions the two western Finnish tribes alongside with the Swedes, which fits with the Church's wishes and definately serves the Tavastians, as Novgorod is so strong enemy allies are welcome.
Wikipedia page of the Tavastians' war against the Karelians and Novgorodians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish%E ... odian_wars
The Battle of Neva is fought in the land of the Karelians. The trade route from Russia to the Baltic Sea went along the Neva River, and the trade was taxed by the Karelians. There exists even a document Hansa trader asking the Novgorodians to tell the Karelians to stop taxing them. In the mouth of Neva there was a Karelian hilltop fort, their most important settlement, Käkisalmi, is a bit over 100km from Neva river mouth, while as Novgorod is twice as far. So if Novgorodians can make it to the battle, Karelians definately can.

Now, I'm wondering how did you leave out all three Finnish tribes, and the Norwegians as well? You don't often do battles where Finns could be as independent players, and when you do, you leave them out.

About the Finnish tribes.
Hämäläiset in Finnish, plural form. In English Tavastians. In Russian chronicles "Jam" or "Jem". The name of their land in Finnish: Häme. The Russian "H" has some "J" sound in it when it is in the beginnig of the word, so Russian Jem sounds quite close to how Finns pronounce Häme. Their land extended from the Bothnian Bay to western coast of Lake Ladoga and the western Karelian Isthmus, thus covering most of southern half of Finland and extending to Russian side of the border.
Suomalaiset in Finnish, plural form. In English Finns, also used "Finns Proper" (varsinaissuomalaiset) to separate them from all the Finns. In Russian chronicles "Sum". The name of their land in Finnish: Suomi. This ancient Suomi covered only small south-western corner of the modern Finland, regions near Aurajoki river valley, this page explains the history of name Suomi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Finland. It is unclear if the suomalaiset and hämäläiset were two separate tribes. The root of both names Häme and Suomi is the same, and the tribes obviously were in good terms.
Karjalaiset in Finnish, plural form. In English Karelians or Carelians. In Russian chronicles "Koryela" or "Korela". The name of their land in Finnish: Karjala. Their land covered most of the Karelian Isthmus, and the surroundings of the Lake Ladoga except its western coast. In Early Iron Age the region was inhabited by Finnic tribe Vepsians, but since about 500AD it was a target of Tavastian immigration. The Karelian tribe emerged from the fusion of the Tavastian immigrants and the Vepsians.

The battle you saw was part of the Alexander Nevsky campaign. The campaigns are historically based in terms of sequence of events but do not attempt to replicate the actual historical orders of battle in specific battles. Instead the OOBs are derived from the army lists, as used in Custom Battles. It wouldn't be possible to use actually historical OOBs after the first battle anyway, as the player controls the composition of his own army within the limits imposed by the army lists.

The "Russian" army list does have Impact Foot warriors in it and also other Irregular Foot units, which together are intended to represent all of the various tribal groupings that might appear in a "Russian" army. Currently the Impact Foot are labelled Ugrians, but could also represent Finns. Althernatively the Finns might be represented by the Irregular Foot.

How would you rate Finns under this system? Similar to Ugrians, similar to Irregular Foot, or different?

With the Novgorodian army there would be various Finnic groups rather than Ugrians, as several Finnic tribes lived from the Lake Ilmen (Ilmajärvi) region to the Arctic Sea in North, Estonia and Finland in the west and to the Volga river system to the east. Karelians would be one of the still independent tribes when this battle battle took place, can't say what sort of independence the other would have had. Ugrians are in the Southern Urals (the Khanty and Mansi), so they don't live in the Novgorodian region at all. IMHO makes much more sense use Finnic than Ugrian with Novgorodians. If the Ugrians ever allied with the Novgorodians, I don't know.

I haven't played yet Field of Glory games, I'm consireding to buy, that's why I was wathcing the video. So I can't compare Finnic tribes to any other units. All I can tell that in Pre-Viking era Finns used a lot domestic short swords, but during Viking Age they imported a lot of swords from Central Europe, German and French industrial sword factories, and domestic made swords also reminded more those used by Germanic peoples. Typical Finnish grave has an iron shield boss, a sword, couple of spears and horse bits. Metallic helmets or armor apparently were not used in Finland yet. Karelians would most likely remind a lot Tavastians, but as they were allied and lived next to Novgorodians, they probably owned Novgorodian armaments as well. I recall reading that Karelia paid part of its taxes to Novgorod as horses. Since equipment of horses are very common also in Finnish graves, I would think it's quite likely they used horses a lot. But I can't help you much there, should rather contact some museum or archaeology department in St. Petersburg probably, to get educated answers.

This page has a map of spoken Uralic languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uralic_languages. Traditionally Uralic languages have been grouped in 3 main groups: Finnic, Ugric and Samoyed. Ugric has 3 languages, Samoyed has 4, Finnic has about 20 to 30 languages (depends what are classed as languages).

This page names many Finnic tribes in Novgorod region https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chud. The Wikipedia page is called Chud, because that was name Novgorodians used of some Finnic peoples, but Finnish Wikipedia claims the word Chud was used of the Toimalaiset tribe https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toimalaiset, English Wikipedia doesn't have page of them. They lived in the Viena river system region https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Dvina. Finnic tribes in the upper map (Novgorod map): Cheremis, Mordvins, Murom, Livonians, Ests, Izhorians, Votes, Chuds, Karelians, Sami, Tavastlanders, Southwest Finns. The Southwest Finns are the Finns (English), Suomalaiset (Finnish), "Sum" (Novgorodian name) tribe mentined in the 1st. post. Tavastlanders are the Tavastian (English), Hämäläiset (Finnish), Jem (Novgorodian name) tribe.

In the lower map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chud the Chud (Toimalaiset) are marked to a bit wrong place, the Novgorod map was better (edit: actually if you swap the Veps and Chud names, then they would be in correct places). Finnic tribes listed in the map: Permians, Mari, Murom, Mordvinians, Meshchera, Merya, Veps, Finns and Ests.

Thanks

You're welcome.
I'm divided what to suggest. If I suggest renaming Ugrians as Karelians, then that would bring Karelians in the battle, but would wrongly portray them as belonging into Novgorodian army (and Karelians playing the game would possibly hate me). It might be the simplest solution though.
IMHO, as the battle was waged in the Karelian country they probably played rather big role: the Ugrians I think only had infantry, maybe adding Karelian cavalry too would be fitting.
If I suggest renaming Ugrians as Finnic, then they don't (necessarily) represent the Karelians.
If one renames them with their tribal names, then they definately don't represent Karelians, but would corrctly represent some Finnic tribes who did fight eiher allied with Novgorodians or within their army. The Prime Chronicles for example tell how the Chudes sent an army to support the Novgorodians.

Gigantopithecus wrote: ↑Tue Dec 29, 2020 10:07 am You're welcome.
I'm divided what to suggest. If I suggest renaming Ugrians as Karelians, then that would bring Karelians in the battle, but would wrongly portray them as belonging into Novgorodian army (and Karelians playing the game would possibly hate me). It might be the simplest solution though.
IMHO, as the battle was waged in the Karelian country they probably played rather big role: the Ugrians I think only had infantry, maybe adding Karelian cavalry too would be fitting.
If I suggest renaming Ugrians as Finnic, then they don't (necessarily) represent the Karelians.
If one renames them with their tribal names, then they definately don't represent Karelians, but would corrctly represent some Finnic tribes who did fight eiher allied with Novgorodians or within their army. The Prime Chronicles for example tell how the Chudes sent an army to support the Novgorodians.

There isn't a special Novgorodian army list, they use the "Russian" list, which therefore has to cover more possibilities than just those available to the Republic of Novgorod, including actual Ugrians.

My current plan is to rename the Ugrian Warriors as "Finno-Ugrian Warriors". Then they cover whichever of the fiercer tribes happens to be present.The Irregular Foot represent any tribes that are less fierce than others, and their nationality is not specifically named because they are a generic type used in many of the army lists to represent similar troops. Both types are also used in the Volga Bulgar army list.

Ahaa, OK. Yep, can use those all over North-Western Russia.