The Treaty of Nöteborg, also known as the ''Treaty of Oreshek'' ( sv, Freden i Nöteborg,
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
: ''Ореховский мир,'' fi, Pähkinäsaaren rauha), is a conventional name for the peace treaty signed at
Oreshek
Shlisselburg ( rus, Шлиссельбу́рг, p=ʂlʲɪsʲɪlʲˈburk; german: Schlüsselburg; fi, Pähkinälinna; sv, Nöteborg), formerly Oreshek (Орешек) (1323–1611) and Petrokrepost (Петрокрепость) (1944–1992), is ...
( sv, Nöteborg, fi, Pähkinäsaari) on 12 August 1323. It was the first settlement between
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
and the
Novgorod Republic
The Novgorod Republic was a medieval state that existed from the 12th to 15th centuries, stretching from the Gulf of Finland in the west to the northern Ural Mountains in the east, including the city of Novgorod and the Lake Ladoga regions of m ...
regulating their border mostly in the area that is also known as
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
today. Three years later, Novgorod signed the
Treaty of Novgorod with the Norwegians.
Name
The treaty had no special name at the time, as it was just called a "permanent peace" between the parties. Modern English language publications most often use the name "Treaty of Nöteborg" for it, which is a direct translation of ''Nöteborgsfreden'' by which the treaty has conventionally been referred to in the Swedish language literature. "Treaty of Oreshek" is a similar translation from the Russian ''Ореховский мир''. Both "Nöteborg" and "Oreshek" are old names of a
fortress in Shlisselburg, used respectively in Swedish and Russian.
Recently, the name "Treaty of Pähkinäsaari" has appeared in some of the English language literature, as a direct translation of the contemporary
Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
name of the treaty, ''Pähkinäsaaren rauha''. "
Pähkinäsaari
Orekhovy (russian: Ореховый остров, sv, Nötö, fi, Pähkinäsaari) is an island in Russia, situated in Lake Ladoga and located at the confluence of Ladoga and the River Neva, at the town of Schlisselburg in the Leningrad region.Л ...
" was and is the Finnish name for the island on which the fortress was built. The Finnish name means literally 'nut island', and is cognate with the Swedish name ('nöt' meaning nut).
Contents
The original text of the treaty has been lost. It has survived in partial copies in Russian, Swedish, and Latin, which are somewhat conflicting.
The treaty was negotiated with the help of Hanseatic merchants in order to conclude the
Swedish-Novgorodian Wars. As a token of goodwill, Novgorod ceded three
Karelian parishes to Sweden; Sweden would in turn stay out of any conflict between Novgorod and Danish
Duchy of Estonia. Both sides would also promise to refrain from building castles on the new border.
The treaty defined the border as beginning east and north of
Viborg Castle, running along the
Sestra and
Volchya Rivers, splitting the
Karelian Isthmus
The Karelian Isthmus (russian: Карельский перешеек, Karelsky peresheyek; fi, Karjalankannas; sv, Karelska näset) is the approximately stretch of land, situated between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga in northwestern ...
in half, running across
Savonia and, according to traditional interpretations, ending in the
Gulf of Bothnia
The Gulf of Bothnia (; fi, Pohjanlahti; sv, Bottniska viken) is divided into the Bothnian Bay and Bothnian Sea, and it is the northernmost arm of the Baltic Sea, between Finland's west coast ( East Bothnia) and the Sweden's east coast (West ...
near the
Pyhäjoki River. However the wording "''the sea in the north''" can as well mean the
Arctic Ocean
The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...
.
Only the southern part of the border, close to Viborg, was actually considered important and clearly defined in the treaty. Borders in the wilderness were defined very roughly, and presumably considered less important than the line across the Karelian Isthmus. It has also been suggested that the treaty would have originally given both Sweden and Novgorod joint rights to northern
Ostrobothnia and
Lappland.
Aftermath
Finnic tribes living on both sides of the border, mainly
Karelians,
Finns
Finns or Finnish people ( fi, suomalaiset, ) are a Baltic Finnic ethnic group native to Finland.
Finns are traditionally divided into smaller regional groups that span several countries adjacent to Finland, both those who are native to these ...
, and
Tavastians, had no say in the treaty. Sweden and Novgorod had already ''de facto'' established their areas of influence in eastern Fennoscandia, with Karelians under Russian rule and other tribes in the west under Swedish rule. The treaty established international approval for that structure, but the concept of "permanent peace" did not have much effect on the long-term conflict between Novgorod and Sweden. The northern part of the border crossed wide stretches of wilderness in which the
Hansa and its diplomats were not interested, but these areas became a bone of contention between Sweden and Novgorod soon thereafter. Within five years after the treaty was signed, Swedish colonists started making inroads into northern Ostrobothnia. Sweden also established castles at
Uleåborg around 1375 and
Olofsborg in 1475, clearly on the Novgorodian side of the border.
[See ''Skrifter''. See also Michael C. Paul, "Archbishop Vasilii Kalika of Novgorod, the Fortress of Orekhov, and the Defense of Orthodoxy," in Alan V. Murray, ed., The Clash of Cultures on the Medieval Baltic Frontier (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009): 253–271.]
In 1595, the
Treaty of Teusina
The Treaty of Teusina, Tyavzin or Tyavzino ( fi, Täyssinän rauha), also known as the Eternal Peace with Sweden in Russia, was concluded by Russian diplomats under the boyar Afanasiy Pushkin (an ancestor of the poet Aleksandr Pushkin) and ambas ...
acknowledged the Swedish text as the correct one. However, long before that, Sweden had succeeded in permanently taking over large areas on the Novgorod side of the original border, including
Ostrobothnia and
Savonia. Eventually, the territory west of the border, along with the expanse to the north, evolved into the country known today as
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
.
See also
*
Birkarls
The Birkarls (''birkarlar'' in Swedish, unhistorical ''pirkkamiehet'' or ''pirkkalaiset'' in Finnish; ''bircharlaboa'', ''bergcharl'' etc. in historical sources) were a small, unofficially organized group that controlled taxation and commerce in ...
*
List of treaties
This list of treaties contains known agreements, pacts, peaces, and major contracts between states, armies, governments, and tribal groups.
Before 1200 CE
1200–1299
1300–1399
1400–1499
1500–1599
1600–1699
1700–1799
...
References
Further reading
*
*
*
*Ingrid Bohn ''Finland: From the Origins to Our Times'' (Riva Publishers)
External links
''Nöteborgsfreden och Finlands medeltida östgräns. Andra delen'' (Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, Nr 427:2, VIII + s. 239-509. Jarl Gallén, John Lind. 1991)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Treaty Of Noteborg
Noteborg
Noteborg
14th century in Finland
1323 in Europe
History of the Karelian Isthmus
Noteborg
Treaties of the Novgorod Republic