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The Treaty of Mozhaysk (also Moshaisk or other transliterations of Можайск) was a Danish-Russian treaty concluded on 7 August 1562, during the Livonian War. While not an actual alliance, the treaty confirmed the amicable Dano-Russian relation and obliged the parties to not support the other parties in the war, to respect each other's claims in Old Livonia, and to grant free passage to each other's merchants.
By 1562, Frederick II of Denmark-Norway and Ivan IV of Russia were two of several parties claiming superiority rights in Livonia, none of whom was able to decide the conflict for themselves. Instead of engaging in open war, Frederick II and Ivan IV preferred to uphold the long tradition of amicable Dano-Russian relations. The treaty has been noted for the circumstances that a European great power met the Russian tsardom on equal footing, and that no prior military decision forced the parties to conclude it.
In practice, the treaty was not wholly implemented. This was in part due to Frederick II's limited engagement in Livonia, where his brother Magnus pursued his own policies. In the subsequent war years, while not antagonizing Frederick II, Ivan IV would deal with Magnus directly, eventually making him king of Livonia as his vassal.
In 1562, during the early stage of the Livonian War, the territory of the present-day states Estonia and Latvia (then Terra Mariana or Old Livonia) was contested between Sigismund II Augustus of Poland–Lithuania, Ivan IV "The Terrible", tsar of Russia, Frederick II of Denmark-Norway and Erik XIV of Sweden. [1] The Livonian Confederation had turned to Poland-Lithuania for protection in the 1557 Treaty of Pozvol, provoking the intervention of Ivan IV [2] who, despite significant territorial gains and the important victory at Ermes (Ergeme), was unable to subordinate all Livonia. [1] The bulk of the disintegrating Livonian Confederation was subordinated to Poland-Lithuania in the Treaty of Vilnius (1561), [3] forming the duchies of Livonia and Courland and Semigallia. With Reval (Tallinn) accepting Swedish superiority, also in 1561, Sweden had established a dominion in Estonia despite the protests of Frederick II, who claimed historical rights on the area and had already purchased the Bishopric of Ösel–Wiek in western Estonia. [1]
Robert I. Frost has summarized the 1562 state of war as an "uneasy stalemate:" while Denmark-Norway, Sweden, Russia and Poland-Lithuania had staked overlapping claims, the local parties of the broken-up Livonian Confederation had at least preliminarily chosen sides and intense fighting had occurred between some of the respective armies, a stable solution was not in sight even if military engagements had waned. [4]
Frederick II focussed on his competition with Erik XIV of Sweden for hegemony in and around the Baltic Sea, which in 1563 culminated into the Northern Seven Years' War. [1] He had no ambitions to enter a conflict with Ivan IV of Russia, and despite a brief irritation in the context of Christian III's occupation of Ösel (Øsel, Saaremaa) in 1558, Dano-Russian relations were amicable and based on a mutual assistance pact of 1493, renewed in 1506 and 1517. [5] Ivan IV likewise did not wish a conflict with Frederick II, as he was unable to reach an understanding with the other parties in the Livonian war, Sweden and Poland-Lithuania, and was pressed by Crimean Tartar invasions at his tsardom's southern frontier. [5]
Frederick II had an uneasy relation to his younger brother Magnus, Duke of Holstein, whom he established in Ösel–Wiek "to be rid" of him. [1] Yet, after Magnus arrived in April 1560, he immediately started to expand by purchasing the Courlandian Stift Pilten (Piltene) and the Estonian bishopric of Reval, and thus by 1561 found himself bankrupt, in conflict with the other parties claiming these territories for themselves, and without any sufficient military means. [6] Magnus turned to his brother's court in Copenhagen hoping that Frederick II would abandon his policy of minimal involvement and enter the Livonian conflict on his side. [6] Yet, Frederick II instead restricted Magnus to not conclude treaties without his consent anymore, obliged him to consolidate his finances by himself and assigned a governor for Ösel–Wiek who was to closely monitor Magnus' activities in Livonia. [6]
On 6 July 1562, a group of Danish envoys arrived at Ivan IV's court in Moscow. [7] The delegation was headed by Frederick II's hofmeister Eiler (also Eller, Elias) Hardenberg, and further included Jacob Brokenhusen, Jens Truelsen Ulfstand and Zacharias Vheling. [8] Negotiations lasted only a month, and the treaty was concluded on 7 August in Mozhaysk (Можайск) west of Moscow. [7]
While the treaty did not contain a new mutual aid pact,
The treaty did not contain an expiry date. [9]
In historiography, the Mozhaysk agreements are regarded as a highly significant treaty. Hübner (1998) says that
"the high significance of this treaty, which has been called a 'milestone in European history,' for the Muscovite state was not only due to its contents, but also because a European great power was ready to conclude it on the basis of a completely equal status, without a prior military conflict forcing the parties to do so." [10]
However, the parties were unable to draw practical advantages from the treaty. [9] Neither party was able to prevent Swedish forces from intruding and occupying part of their Livonian claims, the Danish and Polish kings agreed on mutual support against Sweden in the Northern Seven Years' War. [9] Ivan IV delayed the implementation of the free trade agreements and concluded a seven-year truce with Sweden in 1564. [9] In the following years, Ivan IV focussed on Magnus of Holstein rather than Frederick II, establishing him as the king of Livonia under his vassalage. [11]
Livonia, known in earlier records as Livland, is a historical region on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. It is named after the Livonians, who lived on the shores of present-day Latvia.
Swedish Livonia was a dominion of the Swedish Empire from 1629 until 1721. The territory, which constituted the southern part of modern Estonia and the northern part of modern Latvia, represented the conquest of the major part of the Polish-Lithuanian Duchy of Livonia during the 1600–1629 Polish-Swedish War. Parts of Livonia and the city of Riga were under Swedish control as early as 1621 and the situation was formalized in the Truce of Altmark 1629, but the whole territory was not ceded formally until the Treaty of Oliva in 1660. The minority part of the Wenden Voivodeship retained by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was renamed the Inflanty Voivodeship, which today corresponds to the Latgale region of Latvia.
The Duchy of Livonia, also referred to as Polish Livonia or Livonia, was a territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that existed from 1561 to 1621. It corresponds to the present-day areas of northern Latvia and southern Estonia.
The Livonian War (1558–1583) was fought for control of Old Livonia. The Tsardom of Russia faced a varying coalition of the Dano-Norwegian Realm, the Kingdom of Sweden, and the Union of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland.
The Bishopric of Ösel–Wiek was a Roman Catholic diocese and a semi-independent prince-bishopric — part of Terra Mariana in the Holy Roman Empire. The bishopric covered what are now Saare, Hiiu, Lääne counties and the western part of Pärnu county of Estonia.
The Duchy of Estonia, also known as Danish Estonia, was a direct dominion of the King of Denmark from 1219 until 1346 when it was sold to the Teutonic Order and became part of the Ordensstaat.
Magnus of Denmark or Magnus of Holstein was a Prince of Denmark, Duke of Holstein, and a member of the House of Oldenburg. As a vassal of Tsar Ivan IV of Russia, he was the titular King of Livonia from 1570 to 1578.
The Kingdom of Livonia was a nominal state in what is now the territory of Estonia and Latvia. Russian tsar Ivan IV declared the establishment of the kingdom during the Livonian War of 1558–1583, but it never functioned properly as a polity.
The Bishopric of Courland was the second smallest (4500 km2) ecclesiastical state in the Livonian Confederation founded in the aftermath of the Livonian Crusade. During the Livonian War in 1559 the bishopric became a possession of Denmark, and in 1585 sold by Denmark to Poland–Lithuania.
Oeselians or Osilians is a historical name for the people who prior to the Northern Crusades in the 13th century lived in the Estonian island of Saaremaa (Ösel) – the Baltic Sea island was also referred as Oeselia or Osilia in written records dating from around that time. In Viking Age literature, the inhabitants were often included under the name "Vikings from Estonia", as written by Saxo Grammaticus in the late 12th century. The earliest known use of the word in the (Latinised) form of "Oeselians" in writing was by Henry of Livonia in the 13th century. The inhabitants of Saaremaa (Ösel) are also mentioned in a number of historic written sources dating from the Estonian Viking Age.
Johann von Uexküll was Hofmarschall of Magnus, Duke of Holstein from 1560 to 1571 and the Danish Governor of Ösel from 1576 to 1579.
Denmark–Russia relations are the relations between the countries of Denmark and Russia. The Kings of Denmark and the Russian Tsars interacted from the 15th century onwards – subsequently Denmark's control of access to and from the Baltic Sea had considerable significance for the trade and naval flexibility of the Russian Empire, while rivalries between Denmark and Sweden on the one hand and between Sweden and Russia on the other led to alliances and military support. Denmark and the USSR established diplomatic relations on 18 June 1924.
The Battles of Wenden were a series of battles for control of the stronghold of Wenden, in present-day Latvia, fought during the Livonian War in 1577 and 1578. Magnus of Livonia besieged the town in August 1577, but was deposed and replaced by Russian forces under Tsar Ivan IV, who eventually sacked the town and castle in what became a symbolic victory. Polish forces, however, re-captured the stronghold in November and beat back a Russian counter-attack in February 1578.
The Treaty, Truce or Second Peace of Novgorod was concluded in March 1557. It ended the Russo-Swedish War (1554–1557), a series of skirmishes in the Viborg and Oreshek areas resulting from Swedish attempts to keep Livonia, where the Teutonic Order's rule had collapsed, out of the Russian sphere of influence.
The Treaty or Peace of Pozvol, Pasvalys or Pozwol was a peace treaty and an alliance concluded on 5 and 14 September 1557 between the Livonian Confederation and the Polish-Lithuanian union, whereby the former put its territories under Polish-Lithuanian protection. The treaty was preceded by disputes between the members of the Livonian Confederation and military pressure by Sigismund II Augustus, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, and provoked Russian tsar Ivan IV "the Terrible" to start the Livonian War.
The Treaty of Vilnius was concluded on 28 November 1561, during the Livonian War, between the Livonian Confederation and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in Vilnius. With the treaty, the non-Danish and non-Swedish part of Livonia, with the exception of the Free imperial city of Riga, subjected itself to the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Sigismund II Augustus with the Pacta subiectionis (Provisio ducalis). In turn, Sigismund granted protection from the Tsardom of Russia and confirmed the Livonian estates' traditional privileges, laid out in the Privilegium Sigismundi Augusti.
The Treaty of Dorpat (Tartu) was concluded in May 1564, during the Livonian War. Ivan IV of Russia accepted the subordinance of Reval (Tallinn) and some Livonian castles to Erik XIV of Sweden, and in turn Erik XIV accepted the subordinance of the rest of Livonia to Ivan IV. Subsequently, Russia and Sweden agreed on a seven-years' truce.
Terra Mariana was the formal name for Medieval Livonia or Old Livonia. It was formed in the aftermath of the Livonian Crusade, and its territories were composed of present-day Estonia and Latvia. It was established on 2 February 1207, as a principality of the Holy Roman Empire, and lost this status in 1215 when Pope Innocent III proclaimed it as directly subject to the Holy See.
The District of Pilten was an autonomous district of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and also in union with the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia.