Finland's eastern border after the treaty of Nöteborg: An ecclesiastical, political or cultural border?

Abstract

So far, scholars have claimed that a territorial border line between East and West emerged in Northern Europe when the treaty of Nöteborg was concluded between Sweden and Novgorod in 1323. In fact, it was a medieval agreement which roughly defined economic rights between two not yet territorialized powers. The territorialization of the border and the existence of an East-West confrontation, however, belongs to a later epoch with the emergence of the modern Swedish and Russian empires in the Early Modern period. A real borderline was only drawn in the late fifteenth century, when the Grand Duchy of Moscow replaced the Novgorodian commercial republic as the eastern power in Northern Europe. A stark ideological component was added to the border discourse, when in the sixteenth century Moscow began to legitimize her power as an Orthodox empire, and Sweden as defender of western civilization.