HOME
*



picture info

Swedish Invasion Of Poland (1701–1706)
The Swedish invasion of Poland (1701–1706), also known as Charles XII's invasion of Poland or the Polish front of the Great Northern War, was a conflict in eastern Europe overshadowed by the ongoing Great Northern War fought between the Swedish Empire against the Russian Empire, Denmark-Norway, Saxony and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Polish front was a major part of the greater conflict, and it included some decisive battles in favor of the Swedes that contributed to the length of the war (21 years). Background Augustus the Strong had won the Polish crown by military force after a violent election. Among his opponents were the primates of Poland, most notably cardinal Michał Stefan Radziejowski, archbishop of Gniezno, as well as the powerful Sapieha family. Although these factions had promised not to work against Augustus, the agreement was very unstable. To increase his own authority and put down any rebellious elements within his country, the elected monarch c ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Great Northern War
The Great Northern War (1700–1721) was a conflict in which a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the anti-Swedish alliance were Peter I of Russia, Frederick IV of Denmark–Norway and Augustus II the Strong of Saxony– Poland–Lithuania. Frederick IV and Augustus II were defeated by Sweden, under Charles XII, and forced out of the alliance in 1700 and 1706 respectively, but rejoined it in 1709 after the defeat of Charles XII at the Battle of Poltava. George I of Great Britain and the Electorate of Hanover joined the coalition in 1714 for Hanover and in 1717 for Britain, and Frederick William I of Brandenburg-Prussia joined it in 1715. Charles XII led the Swedish army. Swedish allies included Holstein-Gottorp, several Polish magnates under Stanislaus I Leszczyński (1704–1710) and Cossacks under the Ukrainian Hetman Ivan Mazepa ( ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Charles Frederick, Duke Of Holstein-Gottorp
Charles Frederick, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp () (30 April 1700 – 18 June 1739) was a Prince of Sweden and Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp and an important member of European royalty. His dynasty, the Dukes of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, were a cadet branch of the ancient House of Oldenburg, which at that time was ruling Denmark-Norway. His mother was a sister of Charles XII of Sweden. Charles Frederick married a daughter of Peter the Great and became the father of the future Peter III of Russia. As such, he is the progenitor of the Russian imperial house of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov and the patrilineal ancestor of all Russian emperors starting with Peter III, except for Catherine II. Early life Charles Frederick was born in Sweden, the son of Frederick IV of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp and his consort, Hedvig Sophia, daughter of King Charles XI of Sweden. He became reigning duke in infancy, upon his father's death in 1702 at the Battle of Kliszów, co-ruling, ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Augustus The Strong
Augustus II; german: August der Starke; lt, Augustas II; in Saxony also known as Frederick Augustus I – Friedrich August I (12 May 16701 February 1733), most commonly known as Augustus the Strong, was Elector of Saxony from 1694 as well as King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania in the years 1697–1706 and from 1709 until his death in 1733. He belonged to the Albertine line of the House of Wettin. Augustus' great physical strength earned him the nicknames "the Strong", "the Saxon Hercules" and "Iron-Hand". He liked to show that he lived up to his name by breaking horseshoes with his bare hands and engaging in fox tossing by holding the end of his sling with just one finger while two of the strongest men in his court held the other end.Sacheverell Sitwell. ''The Hunters and the Hunted'', p. 60. Macmillan, 1947. He is also notable for fathering a very large number of children. In order to be elected King of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Augustus converted to ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Electorate Of Saxony
The Electorate of Saxony, also known as Electoral Saxony (German: or ), was a territory of the Holy Roman Empire from 1356–1806. It was centered around the cities of Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz. In the Golden Bull of 1356, Emperor Charles IV designated the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg an electorate, a territory whose ruler was one of the prince-electors who chose the Holy Roman emperor. After the extinction of the male Saxe-Wittenberg line of the House of Ascania in 1422, the duchy and the electorate passed to the House of Wettin. The electoral privilege was tied only to the Electoral Circle, specifically the territory of the former Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg. In the 1485 Treaty of Leipzig, the Wettin noble house was divided between the sons of Elector Frederick II into the Ernestine and Albertine lines, with the electoral district going to the Ernestines. In 1547, when the Ernestine elector John Frederick I was defeated in the Schmalkaldic War, the electoral district and ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. The rise of the Russian Empire coincided with the decline of neighbouring rival powers: the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Qajar Iran, the Ottoman Empire, and Qing China. It also held colonies in North America between 1799 and 1867. Covering an area of approximately , it remains the third-largest empire in history, surpassed only by the British Empire and the Mongol Empire; it ruled over a population of 125.6 million people per the 1897 Russian census, which was the only census carried out during the entire imperial period. Owing to its geographic extent across three continents at its peak, it featured great ethnic, linguistic, religious, and economic diversity. From the 10th–17th centuries, the la ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Ayuka Khan
Ayuka or Ayuki Khan (1669–1724) was a Kalmyk leader under whose rule the Kalmyk Khanate reached its zenith in terms of economic, military, and politic power. On behalf of Russia, Ayuka Khan protected the southern borders of Russia, engaging in many military expeditions against the Muslim tribes of Central Asia, the North Caucasus and Crimea. "The Kalmyk Khanate reached its peak of power in the period of Ayuka Khan (1669-1724). Ayuka Khan fulfilled his responsibility to protect the southern borders of Russia and conducted many military expeditions against the Crimean Tatars, Ottoman Empire and Kuban Tatars. He also waged wars against the Kazakhs, subjugated the Mangyshlak Turkmens, and made multiple expeditions against the highlanders of the North Caucasus." Kalmyk troops invaded Bashkirs with Kazan and Orenburg Bashkir Uprising (1681–1684). Then the Russian government sent to negotiate for Ayuka Prince Golitsyn Alexei Ivanovich. These negotiations failed to stop the Russian at ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Ivan Mazepa
Ivan Stepanovych Mazepa (also spelled Mazeppa; uk, Іван Степанович Мазепа, pl, Jan Mazepa Kołodyński; ) was a Ukrainian military, political, and civic leader who served as the Hetman of Zaporizhian Host in 1687–1708. He was awarded a title of Prince of the Holy Roman Empire in 1707 for his efforts for the Holy League. The historical events of Mazepa's life have inspired many literary, artistic and musical works. He was famous as a patron of the arts. Mazepa played an important role in the Battle of Poltava (1709), where after learning that Tsar Peter I intended to relieve him as acting Hetman (military leader) of Zaporozhian Host (a Cossack state) and to replace him with Alexander Menshikov, he defected from his army and sided with King Charles XII of Sweden. The political consequences and interpretation of this defection have resonated in the national histories both of Russia and of Ukraine. The Russian Orthodox Church laid an anathema (e ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Boris Sheremetev
Count Boris Petrovich Sheremetev (russian: Граф Бори́с Петро́вич Шереме́тев, tr. ; – ) was an Imperial Russian diplomat and general field marshal during the Great Northern War. He became the first Russian count in 1706. His children included Pyotr Sheremetev and Natalia Sheremeteva. Early life In his youth, Sheremetyev was a page to Tsar Alexis I before starting his military career. From 1671 he served at the imperial court. In 1681 he was a leader at Tambov, commanding the armies fighting the Crimean Khanate, and from 1682 he was a boyar. From 1685 to 1687 he participated in negotiations and the conclusion of the " Eternal Peace of 1686" with Poland and the allied treaty with Austria. From the end of 1687 he commanded the armies in Belgorod defending Russia's southern border, and participated in the Crimean campaigns. After Peter I gained power in 1689, he joined him as a fellow campaigner. He participated along with Mazepa in the war against ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Aleksandr Danilovich Menshikov
Prince Aleksander Danilovich Menshikov (russian: Алекса́ндр Дани́лович Ме́ншиков, tr. ; – ) was a Russian statesman, whose official titles included Generalissimo, Prince of the Russian Empire and Duke of Izhora ( Duke of Ingria), Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, Duke of Cosel. A highly appreciated associate and friend of Tsar Peter the Great, he was the ''de facto'' ruler of Russia for two years. Early life Menshikov was born on in Moscow. Historian Paul Bushkovitch argues that Menshikov was not an aristocrat and was most likely descended from servants of the palace stables, who among others made up the first soldiers of Peter's 'toy armies.' As the legend (dating from around 1710) goes, he was making a living on the streets of Moscow as a vendor of stuffed buns known as pirozhki at the age of twenty. His fine appearance and witty character caught the attention of Franz Lefort, Peter's first favourite, who took him into his service and fin ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Peter I Of Russia
Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from to 1721 and subsequently the Russian Empire until his death in 1725, jointly ruling with his elder half-brother, Ivan V until 1696. He is primarily credited with the modernisation of the country, transforming it into a European power. Through a number of successful wars, he captured ports at Azov and the Baltic Sea, laying the groundwork for the Imperial Russian Navy, ending uncontested Swedish supremacy in the Baltic and beginning the Tsardom's expansion into a much larger empire that became a major European power. He led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political systems with ones that were modern, scientific, Westernised and based on the Enlightenment. Peter's reforms had a l ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Johann Matthias Von Der Schulenburg
Marshal Johann Matthias Reichsgraf von der Schulenburg (8 August 1661 – 14 March 1747) was a German aristocrat and general of Brandenburg-Prussian background who served in the Saxon and Venetian armies in the early 18th century and found a second career in retirement in Venice, as a grand collector and patron. His sister was Melusine von der Schulenburg, Duchess of Kendal. His father was Gustavus Adolphus, Baron von der Schulenburg. Schulenburg as mercenary Schulenburg was born in Emden near Magdeburg. Between 1687 and 1688 Schulenburg fought with the Imperial troops against the Turks in Hungary. On his return he rose in the ranks of the army of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg. In 1699 he became a Colonel in the German regiment in the service of Victor Amadeus II of Savoy, and was severely wounded in 1701. In 1702 he joined the Saxon Army and fought in the Great Northern War against Charles XII of Sweden and suffered defeats in the Battle of Klissow, Battle of Fraustadt an ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]