GERMAN INVASION--MONGOL INVASION The Principality of Novgorod had from a remote antiquity been the political center of Northern, as was Kief of Southern Russia.

It was the Novgorodians who invited the Norse Princes to come and rule the land; and it was the Novgorodians who were their least submissive subjects.

When one of the Grand Princes proposed to send his son, whom they did not want, to be their Prince, they replied: "Send him here if he has a spare head." It was a fearless, proud republic, as patriotic and as quarrelsome as Florence, which it somewhat resembled.

Their Prince was in reality a figurehead.

He was considered essential to the dignity of the state, but his fortunes were in the hands of two political parties, of which he represented the party in the ascendant.
Novgorod was a commercial city--its life was in its trade with the Orient and the Greek Empire, and like the Italian cities, its politics were swayed by economic interests.