NOVGOROD (formerly known as V elikiy-Novgorod,

See also:

• GREAT

Great Novgorod)  , a town of Russia, capital of the government of the same name, and the seat of an archbishop of the Orthodox Greek Church, situated 119 M. by rail S. of St . Petersburg, on the low flat banks of the Volkhov, 2 M. below the point where it issues from Lake Ilmen . Pop . (190o) 26,972 . The present town is but a poor survival of the wealthy city of medieval times . It consists of a kremlin (old fortress), and of the city, which stands on both banks of the river, connected by a handsome stone bridge . The kremlin was much enlarged in 1044, and again in 1116 . Its stone walls, originally palisades, were begun in 1302, and much extended in 1490 . Formerly a great number of churches and shops, with wide squares, stood within the enclosure . Its historical monuments include the cathedral of St Sophia, built in 1045–1052 by architects from Constantinople to take the place of the original wooden structure (989), destroyed by fire in that year . Some minor changes were made in 1688 and 1692, but otherwise (notwithstanding several fires) the building remained unaltered until its restoration in 1893–1900 . It contains many highly-prized relics, including bronze doors of the 12th century, one brought reputedly from Sigtuna, the ancient capital of Sweden .

Another ancient building in the kremlin is the Yaroslav

Tower, in the square where the Novgorod vyeche (common council) used to meet; it still bears the name of " the court of Yaroslav " ; and was the chancellery of the secretaries of the vyeche . Other remarkable monuments of ancient Russian architecture are the church of St . Nicholas erected in 1135, the Snamenski cathedral of the 14th century, and churches of the 14th and 15th centuries . Within the town itself there are four monasteries and convents, two of them dating from the 1th century and two from the 12th century; and the large number in the immediate neighbourhood shows the great extent which the city formerly had . A monument to commemorate the thousandth anniversary of the foundation of Russia (the calling in of the Varangians by Novgorod in 862) was erected in 1862 . Another monument commemorates the repulse of the Napoleonic invasion of 1812 . The date at which the Slays first erected forts on the Volkhov (where it leaves Lake Ilmen and where it flows into Lake Ladoga) is unknown . That situated on a low terrace close by Lake Ilmen was soon abandoned, and Novgorod or " New-town " (in contradistinction to the Scandinavian Aldegjeborg or Ladoga) was founded by Scandinavian sea-rovers as Holmgard on another terrace which extended a mile lower on both banks of the river . The older fort (Gorodishche) still existed in the 13th century . Even in the 9th century the new city on the Volkhov exercised a kind of supremacy over the other towns of the lake region, when its inhabitants in 862 invited the Varangians, under the leadership of Rurik, to the defence of the Russian towns of the north . Down to the end of the loth century Novgorod was in some sort depended on Kiev; yet in 997 its inhabitants obtained from their own prince Yaroslav a charter which granted them self-government . For five centuries this charter was the bulwark of the independence of Novgorod .

From the end of the loth century the princes of Novgorod, chosen either from the sons of the great princes of Kiev (until 1136) or from some other

branch of the family of Rurik, were always elected by the vyeche; but they were only its military defenders, and their delegates were merely assessors in the courts which levied taxes for the military force raised by the prince . The vyeche invariably expelled the princes as soon as they provoked discontent . Their election was often a subject of dispute between the wealthier merchants and landowners and the poorer classes; and Novgorod, which was dependent for its corn supply upon the land of Suzdal, was sometimes compelled to accept a prince from the Suzdal branch instead of from that of Kiev . After 1270 the city often refused to its trade . Its position, however, on the water highway from the have princes at all, and the elected mayor was the representative of the executive . Novgorod in its transactions with other cities took the name of " Sovereign Great Novgorod " (Gospodin Velikiy Novgorod) . The supreme power was in the hands of the vyeche . The city, which had a population of more than 8o,000, was divided into wards, and each ward constituted a distinct to the east of Novgorod . (P . A . K.; J . T .

BE) .

commune . The wards were subdivided into streets, which NOVIBAZAR, NOVI-BAZAR, Or NOVIPAZAR (ancient Rassia, corresponded to the prevailing occupations of their inhabitants, Rascia, or Rashka, Turkish Yenipazar, i.e . " New Market "), a each of these again being quite independent with regard to its sanjak of European Turkey, in the vilayet of Kossovo . Pop . own affairs . (1905) about 170,000 . Novibazar is a mountainous region, Trade was carried on by corporations . By the Volkhov and J watered by the Lim, which flows north into Bosnia, and by the Neva, Novgorod—then known also as Naugart and Nov- I several small tributaries of the Servian Ibar . About threewerden—had direct communication with the Hanseatic and fourths of the inhabitants are Christian Serbs, and the remainder Scandinavian cities, especially with Visby or Wisby on the are chiefly Moslem Albanians, with a few gipsies, Turkish island of Gotland . The Dnieper brought it into connexion with officials and about 3000 Austro-Hungarian soldiers . The local the Bosporus, and it was intermediary in the trade of Constan- trade is mainly agricultural .

The sanjak is of great strategic tinople with

northern Europe . The Novgorod traders penetrated importance, for it is the N .W. part of the Turkish empire, on the at an early date to the shores of the White Sea, hunted on direct route between Bosnia and Salonica, and forms a wedge of Novaya Zemlya in the r 1th century, colonized the basins of the Turkish territory between Servia and Montenegro . The union northern Dvina, descended the Volga, and as early as the 14th of these powers, combined with the annexation of Novibazar, century extended their trading expeditions beyond the Urals would have impeded the extension of Austrian influence towards into Siberia . Two great colonies, Vyatka and Vologda, organized Salonica . But by the treaty of Berlin (1878) Austria-Hungary on the same republican principles as the metropolis, favoured the was empowered to garrison the towns of Byelopolye, Priyepolye, further colonization of N.E . Russia . Plevlye and other strategic points within the sanjak, although At the same time a number of flourishing minor towns such as the entire civil administration remained in Turkish hands . Novyi Torg (Torzhok), Novaya Ladoga, Pskov, and many others This decision was enforced in 1879 . The chief approaches from arose in the lake region . Pskov soon became quite independent, Servia and Montenegro have also been strongly fortified by the and had a history of its own; the others enjoyed a large measure Turks . of independence, still figuring. however, as subordinate towns in Novibazar, the capital of the sanjak, is a town of about 12,0OC all circumstances which necessitated common action . It is said inhabitants, on the site of the ancient Servian city of Rassia. that the population of Novgorod in the 14th century reached Near it there are Roman baths, and the old church of St Peter 400,000, and that the pestilences of 1467, 1508 and 1533 carried and St .

Paul, the metropolitan church of the bishopric of Rassia, off no fewer than 134,000 persons . These figures, however, seem in which Stephen Nemanya, king of Servia, passed from the to relate rather to the whole Ilmen region . Roman to the Greek Church in 1143 . Novgorod's struggle against the Suzdal region (now the govern- NOVICE (through French from Lat. novicius or novicius, one ment of Vladimir) began as early as the 12th century . In the who has newly arrived, novus, new), a person who joins a religious following century it had to contend with the Swedes and the order on probation . He or she is subject to the authority of the Germans, who were animated not only by the desire of territorial superior, wears the dress of the order, and obeys the rules . At acquisition, but also by the spirit of religious proselytism . The the end of the " novitiate," which must last at least one year, advances of both were checked by battles at Ladoga and Pskov in the novice is free to leave without taking the vows, and the order 1240 and 1242 respectively . Protected by its marshes, Novgorod is free to refuse to allow him or her to take them . The word was escaped the Mongol invasion of 1240-42, and was able to repel the early used of a beginner in any art or science, hence an inexattacks of the princes of Moscow by whom the Mongols were perienced person . supported . It also successfully resisted the attacks of Tver, and NOVI LIGURE, a town of Piedmont, Italy, in the province of aided Moscow in its struggle against this powerful neighbour; Alessandria, from which it is 14 M .

S.E. by rail, situated among but soon the ambition of the growing Moscow

state was turned wooded hills, 646 ft. above sea-level . Pop . (1901) 17,868 . It against itself . The first serious invasion, in 1332, was rolled back was the scene of a victory by the Austrians and Russians under with the aid of the Lithuanians . But in 1456 the great prince of Moscow succeeded in imposing a heavy tribute . Ivan III. of Moscow took possession of the colonies in the northern D vina and the Perm regions, and began two bloody wars, during which Novgorod fought for its liberty under the leadership of Martha Boretskaya, the mayor . In 1475–1478 Ivan III. entered Novgorod, abolished its charters, and carried away i000 of the wealthier families, substituting for them families from Moscow; the old free city then recognized his sovereignty . A century later Ivan IV . (the Terrible) abolished the last vestiges of the independence of the city . Having learned that a party favourable to Lithuania had been organized in Novgorod, he took the field in 1570, and entered the city (much weakened by the recent pestilences) without opposition . His followers killed the heads of the monasteries, the wealthier of the merchants and clergy, and burned and pillaged the city and villages .

No fewer than 15,000 men,

women and children were massacred at Novgorod alone (60,000 according to some authorities) . A famine ensued, and the district of Novgorod fell into utter desolation . Thousands of families were transported to Moscow, Nizhniy-Novgorod, and other towns of the principality of Moscow . In the beginning of the 17th century Novgorod was taken and held for seven years by the Swedes; and in the 18th century the foundation of St Petersburg ultimately destroyed Volga to St Petersburg and on the trunk road from Moscow to the capital, still gave it some commercial importance; but even this was destroyed by the opening of the Vishera canal, connecting the Msta with the Volkhov below the city, and by the construction of the railway from St Petersburg to Moscow, which passes 46 m . Suvorov over the French in 1799 . It is now an important railway junction, the main lines from Turin and Milan to Genoa con-verging here . Cotton, silk, coal briquettes, &c., are also manufactured here . NOVO-BAYAZET, a town of Russian Transcaucasia, in the government of Erivan, 35 M . E.N.E. of the town of Erivan, and 4 M . W. of Gok-chai Lake, 5870 ft. above the sea . Pop . 8507 in 1897, mainly Armenians .

An Armenian

village which stood here was destroyed by Nadir Shah of Persia in 1736, and it was not till the Turkish War of 1828–29 that the site was again occupied by Armenian refugees from the Turkish town of Bayazet or Bayazid .