4.30 Europe: a.d. 1601 to 1700  (Page 26/30)

Poland continued the disastrous war with the Turks and the latter soon gained sovereignty over the western Ukraine. Jan Sobieski, a general of that war, was elected king to become Poland's greatest sovereign. He launched further campaigns against the Turks, wresting the western Ukraine away from them again and finally defeated them in their last siege of Vienna. As a help in this last war, Sobieski signed a treaty with Vasily Golitsyn, prime minister of Russia and incidentally the regent Sophia's lover, by which Russia attacked the Crimean Tartar vassals of the Ottomans. In exchange, Poland again ceded Kiev to Russia. (Ref. 131 ) At home Sobieski, although he tried, could not improve the conditions of the peasants, for their masters dominated the Sejm (parliamentary body); he could not compel the rich to pay taxes for the wealthy were the Sejm; he could not keep the factious nobles in order, for they refused him a standing army. (Ref. 53 ) The Turkish domination of the Balkans had cut off the southern trade routes from Poland and this, along with the rise of a class of great landlords, lessened the prosperity of - Poland's commercial centers and prevented the development of a Polish middle class. The nobles, who owned serfs, sent a regular river of grain from their estates down the Vistula to Gdansk. (Ref. 292 )

Upon King Sobieski's death, in spite of the Sejm's decision to accept Louis XIV's choice of Prince de Conti, Augustus of Saxony simply marched in with a Saxon army and took over as king. As he changed his religion to Catholicism, it was soon apparent that he was shrewd, deceitful and, in modern terminology, a real "double dealer". At the end of the century in 1700, this section of Europe was wrapped up in the Great Northern War, with Karl (Charles) XII of Sweden defeating Russia's army at Narva, Livonia. But Karl did not pursue, probably because of fever, dysentery and hunger in his army. His horses were eating bark, because of a "scorched earth" policy of the retreating Russians. By the spring of 1700 only 1/2 of Karl's troops were fit for action. (Ref. 131 )

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Russia (see map in russia section, 19th century)

In the last chapter we left Russia with Boris Godunov on the throne. He immediately had several problems. First of all he was not of royal descent and this aroused the old boyar families - the Golitsyns, Shuiskys, Romanovs and others. Next, crop failures between 1601 and 1603 caused catastrophic famines and finally there were rumors that Boris had actually been involved in the assassination of the "rightful heir", the infant Dimitri. In 1604 a motley army of mercenaries from Poland, including restless Cossacks and disgruntled peasants, marched on Moscow and in the middle of this uprising Boris died and was replaced by his son Theodore. The advancing army had the "False Dimitri" with them and through intrigues with Jesuits and Polish-Lithuanians and various opponents of Theodore, the "False Dimitri" was set up as Czar, taking a Polish girl as his wif e. Polish-Lithuanian influence suddenly became very predominant. When it was discovered that the Czar's wife was Catholic, however, a popular uprising resulted in Dimitri's death and the appointment of Vasili Shuisky as the new ruler.