Treaty of Vilnius
The Treaty of Vilnius or the Treaty of Niemież was an armistice agreement of November 3, 1656 between Poland-Lithuania and the Russian Empire , which suspended the Russo-Polish War 1654–1667 for two years.
history
After a series of successes by the Russian army and an even more successful Swedish invasion of Poland-Lithuania, the Russian tsar decided that the total defeat of Poland-Lithuania and a Swedish victory would lead to a further strengthening of Sweden, and thus to a threat to Russia would be. This was not in Russia's interest.
In 1656 negotiations between Tsarist Russia and Poland-Lithuania over Ukraine took place in Vilnius . Wincenty Korwin Gosiewski negotiated on the Polish side and Afanasy Ordin-Nashchokin on the Russian side . The Ukrainian representatives were not admitted to these negotiations by Moscow. Attempts by the hetman to break away from this contract were in vain.
The agreement was signed in Niemież ( lit. Nemėžis) near Vilnius . The territorial claims of Tsar Alexei (on Smolensk , Severien , and especially the Ukraine ) were not fulfilled, but against the background of Swedish successes in Poland and the Russo-Swedish War 1656-1658 , Russia entered into a short-lived alliance with Poland against Sweden , by directing parts of its armed forces against Swedish Livonia (cf. Siege of Riga (1656) ). In addition, the Polish side promised to support the tsar in a possible election as Polish king. The treaty allowed Poland-Lithuania to focus on repelling the Swedish invasion.
After the death of Bohdan Khmelnyzkyj in 1657, Poland wanted to use the inflamed power struggle in the Cossack elite to win a man of his own in the hetmanate to power and to win the almost lost war. With Ivan Wyhowskyj Poland concluded the Treaty of Hadjatsch , in which it promised the Cossacks an autonomous Ruthenian principality. Hostilities between Poland and Russia continued in 1658 after Russia dispatched an army against Vyhowskyj and negotiations with him failed.
literature
- Jean-Henri Schnitzler: History of the Russian Empire from the earliest times to the death of Emperor Nicholas I, Leipzig 1865, p. 115f
Individual evidence
- ^ Rudolf Wagner, Paula Tiefenthaler, Adolf Armbruster ,: From the Moldauwappen to the double-headed eagle. 2. Festschrift for the 75th birthday of Dr. Paula Tiefenthaler, Hofmann-Verlag, 1993, p. 96