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Alexander Nevsky (Aleksandr Nevskiy)

An army of the Teutonic Order invades and conquers the city of Pskov with the help of the traitor Tverdilo, and massacres its population. Novgorod is their next intended target.

Despite resistance from the boyars and merchants of Novgorod (urged on by the monk Ananias, Tverdilo's henchman), an appeal is made to Alexander Yaroslavich Nevsky, to again become their prince and defend Novgorod. To do so he rallies the common people of the Novgorod area. In the decisive Battle of the Ice, on the surface of frozen Lake Chudskoe, the Teutonic forces are defeated. Pskov is retaken, and there Nevsky passes judgment: the surviving Teutonic foot-soldiers are set free, while the surviving Teutonic knights will be held for ransom. Tverdilo the traitor, together with a Catholic priest who blessed the burning alive of Pskov children, disappear as they are mobbed by the onlookers.

A subplot throughout is the rivalry and friendship of Vasili Buslai and Gavrilo Oleksich, two famous (and historic) warriors of Novgorod. Both become commanders of the Novgorod forces, and are engaged in a contest of courage and fighting skill in order to decide which will win the hand of Olga Danilovna, a Novgorod maiden whom both are courting.

At the same time Vasilisa, daughter of a boyar of Pskov killed by the Teutons, joins the Novgorod forces as a soldier. She and Vasili wind up fighting side by side; she throws him a weapon when he is surrounded and weaponless, and it is she who finds and slays Ananias.

Gavrilo and Vasili are seriously wounded and are found by Olga, who retrieves them from the battlefield. Though they defer to each other, in the end Vasili publicly states that neither was the bravest in battle: that honor goes to Vasilisa, followed by Gavrilo. Thus Gavrilo and Olga are united while Vasili chooses Vasilisa as his bride-to-be (with her unspoken consent).