435 years ago, on January 5 (15), 1582, the Yam-Zapolsky peace treaty was concluded. This peace was concluded between the Russian kingdom and the Commonwealth in the village of Kiverova Gora, near Yam Zapolsky, in a town not far from Pskov. This document, among other diplomatic acts, summed up the results of the Livonian War (1558-1583) and proclaimed a truce between the two powers for a period of 10 years. Peace lasted until the outbreak of the 1609-1618 war.
Background. Livonian war
During the period of disintegration and feudal fragmentation, the Russian state lost a number of territories, including those of great military-strategic and economic importance. Among the most important tasks of the Russian government during the reign of Ivan IV was a full access to the shores of the Baltic Sea. Here the traditional opponents of Russia-Russia were Sweden, Poland, Lithuania and Livonia (Livonian Order).
The Livonian Order was greatly degraded at this time, having lost its former military power. Ivan IV decided to use the favorable situation in order to return part of the Baltic states and increase his influence on Livonia. The Dorpat bishopric had to pay the so-called St. George's tribute to Pskov annually. The Russian tsar in 1554 demanded the return of arrears, the refusal of the Livonian Confederation (the Livonian Order and 4 principalities-bishoprics) from military alliances with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Sweden, and the continuation of the armistice. The first payment of the debt for Dorpat was supposed to take place in 1557, but Livonia did not fulfill its obligation. At the beginning of 1558 Moscow started the war.
The start of the campaign was victorious. The Livonians suffered a crushing defeat, Russian troops ravaged the territory of Livonia, took a number of fortresses, castles, Dorpat (Yuryev). However, the defeat of Livonia caused the alarm of the neighboring powers, which were afraid of strengthening the Russian state at the expense of the Livonian Confederation and themselves claimed its lands. Serious pressure was put on Moscow from Lithuania, Poland, Sweden and Denmark. Lithuanian ambassadors demanded that Ivan IV cease hostilities in Livonia, threatening, otherwise, to side with the Livonian Confederation. Then Swedish and Danish ambassadors made requests to end the war. In addition, in Moscow itself, part of the ruling circles were against this war, proposing to concentrate efforts on the southern direction (the Crimean Khanate).
The military defeat of Livonia caused its disintegration and the intervention of other powers in the war. The Livonian elite generally preferred to surrender their positions to other Western powers. On August 31, 1559, Master Gotthard Kettlers concluded an agreement with the Lithuanian Grand Duke Sigismund II in Vilna, according to which the lands of the Order and the possessions of the Riga Archbishop were transferred under "clientele and patronage", that is, under the protectorate of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. On September 15, a similar agreement was concluded with the Archbishop of Riga Wilhelm. As a result, the Order transferred the southeastern part of Livonia on bail to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania for protection. The Vilnius Treaty served as the basis for the entry of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into the war with the Russian state. In the same 1559, Revel ceded to Sweden, and the Ezel Bishop ceded the island of Ezel to Duke Magnus, brother of the Danish king.
On November 18, 1561, the Vilna union was concluded. On a part of the lands of the Livonian Order, a secular state was formed - the Duchy of Courland and Semigalsk, headed by Gotthard Kettler as a duke, and the rest went to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. German Emperor Ferdinand I banned the supply of Russians through the port of Narva. The Swedish king Eric XIV blocked Narva and sent Swedish privateers to intercept merchant ships sailing to the Russian port. Lithuanian troops began raiding Russian lands.
Thus, Sweden and Lithuania, which had acquired the Livonian lands, demanded that Moscow remove troops from their territory. Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible refused, and Russia found itself in conflict not with weak Livonia, but with powerful opponents - Lithuania and Sweden. A new stage of the war began - a long war of attrition, where active hostilities alternated with truces, and went on with varying success. For Moscow, the situation was aggravated by the war on the southern front - with the troops of the Crimean Khanate, which supported the Turkish forces. Of the 25 years of the war, during only 3 years there were no significant Crimean raids. As a result, significant forces of the Russian army were forced to be distracted by the conduct of hostilities on the southern borders of Russia.
In 1563, the Russian army took the ancient Russian fortress and an important stronghold of the Lithuanian state - Polotsk. However, after the capture of Polotsk, Russia's success in the Livonian War began to decline. Moscow had to fight on several fronts at once. There was also a breakdown in the Russian elite, part of the boyars did not want to wage war with Lithuania. The boyar and a major military leader who actually commanded the Russian troops in the West, Prince A. M. Kurbsky, went over to the side of Lithuania. To eradicate internal treason and mobilize the country, Tsar Ivan the Terrible introduced the oprichnina in 1565.
In 1569, as a result of the Union of Lublin, Lithuania and Poland merged into a single unitary state - Rzeczpospolita, which meant the transfer of all Lithuanian claims to Moscow to Poland. At first, Poland tried to negotiate. In the spring of 1570, the Lithuanian embassy arrived in Moscow. During the negotiations, they argued about the Polotsk borders, but they did not come to an agreement. At the same time, the Poles hinted that Sigismund had no heir, and Ivan or his sons could claim the Polish throne. As a result, in the summer of 1570, an armistice was signed in Moscow for a period of three years. According to its terms, both parties were supposed to own what they controlled at the moment.
After the death of King Sigismund, the Polish and Lithuanian lords developed a stormy activity in choosing a new monarch. Among the contenders for the Polish throne was Tsarevich Fyodor, the son of Ivan the Terrible. Fedor's supporters noted the closeness of the Russian and Polish languages and customs. It is worth remembering that the western glades - the Poles used to be part of a single super-ethnos of the Russians, but fell under the rule of the owners of the western project (the "command post" of the West was then Catholic Rome) and they were set against the Russians. In the current historical period, according to a similar scheme, the masters of the West have created a split along the line: Big and Small Russia (Rus). At the same time, the languages of the Russians and the Poles differed very little, being a continuation of the language of the super-ethnos of the Rus. The differences intensified later, were caused artificially, under the influence of the Roman Catholic and Germanic world. In a similar way, in the last century, the "Ukrainian language", the "Ukrainian people" was created in order to tear off a part of the super-ethnos of the Rus - Western Rus-Little Russians from the rest of the Russians.
In addition, the military-strategic need for a rapprochement between the Russians and the Poles was emerging. Our common historical enemies were Swedes, Germans, Crimean Tatars and Ottoman Turks. The Russian king was desired by the population of Little and White Russia, which could strengthen the unity of the Commonwealth. Pans-Catholics hoped that Fedor would accept Catholicism, live in Poland and strive to expand and strengthen possessions in the southwest, at the expense of the Ottoman Empire, or in the west in the German Empire. The Protestant pans generally preferred the Orthodox king to the Catholic king. Money was also an important argument in favor of the Russian tsarevich. The greed of the Polish lords was already pathological and reached gigantic proportions. The most fantastic rumors circulated about the enormous wealth of the Russian kingdom in Poland and throughout Europe.
However, Ivan the Terrible offered himself as king. This did not suit the Polish lords. Many problems immediately arose, for example, how to divide Livonia. They needed a weak king who would not be able to shorten their liberty, would provide new rights and benefits. Rumors about Fedor's morbidity have already leaked to Poland and Lithuania. The pans naturally did not want to see such a powerful figure as Ivan the Terrible as a king. Also, the Russian government and the lords did not agree on the price. The Polish lords demanded huge sums of money from Moscow, without giving any guarantees. The tsar offered an amount several times less. As a result, they did not agree on the price.
As a result, the French party pushed through the candidacy of Henry of Anjou, brother of the French king Charles and son of Catherine de Medici. In 1574, a French prince arrived in Poland and became king. In France, he did not deal with state affairs, did not know not only Polish, but also Latin. Therefore, the new king spent time drinking and playing cards with the French from his retinue. However, he signed the so-called. "Henry's Articles", which further weakened the institution of royal power in Poland and strengthened the position of the gentry. The king renounced hereditary power, guaranteed freedom of religion to dissidents (as non-Catholics were called), promised not to resolve any issues without the consent of a permanent commission of 16 senators, not to declare war and not to conclude peace without a Senate, to convene a Diet every two years, etc. In case of violation of these obligations, the gentry was released from the oath to the king, that is, an armed uprising of the Polish nobility against the king was legalized (the so-called "rokosh" - confederation).
Suddenly, a messenger arrived from Paris, announcing the death of Charles IX and the demand of his mother to immediately return to France. Heinrich preferred France to Poland. Not wanting to wait for the consent of the Diet, Henry secretly fled to France. There he became the French king. Poland was accustomed to confusion and disorder, but this had not happened yet - the king fled! In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Moscow party became active again and proposed the candidacy of Tsarevich Fyodor. But again the gentlemen did not agree on the price with Ivan the Terrible.
Meanwhile, Russia continued fighting in the south and northwest. In 1569, the Crimean Turkish army tried to capture Astrakhan. However, the campaign was poorly organized and failed completely. The enemy army was almost completely destroyed. At the same time, the Ottoman fleet was almost completely destroyed by a strong storm near the Azov fortress. In 1571, the Crimean horde of Devlet-Giray reached Moscow and burned its suburbs, the southern Russian lands were devastated. In the Baltic, the Swedes launched an active pirate activity in order to disrupt Russian sea trade. Moscow responded by creating its own pirate (privateer) fleet under the command of the Dane Carsten Rode. His actions were quite effective and curtailed Swedish and Polish trade in the Baltic Sea. In 1572, in the fierce battle at Molody, Russian troops almost completely destroyed the huge Crimean Turkish army. In 1573 Russian troops stormed the Weissenstein fortress. In the same year, the Swedes defeated the Russian troops in the battle at Lode. In 1575 the Russians took the Pernov fortress.
Thus, the fighting went on with varying degrees of success. For a long time, Moscow managed to hold back opponents with weapons and diplomacy, achieve success, and counting on a certain success following the results of the war. But the situation changed in the late 1570s, when the Smeigrad voivode, a prominent commander Stefan Batory, was elected to the Polish throne.
In January 1577, the Russian army under the command of Ivan Sheremetev invaded Northern Livonia and laid siege to Revel. But they failed to take the city. In the summer of the same year, the tsar himself entered the campaign from Novgorod to Polish Livonia. The ruler of Livonia, hetman Karl (Jan) Chodkiewicz did not dare to join the battle and retreated to Lithuania. Most of the cities of South Lebanon surrendered to the Russian governors without resistance. Only Riga survived. After completing the campaign, Ivan the Terrible with part of the army returned to the Russian kingdom, leaving part of the army in Livonia. Immediately after the withdrawal of part of the Russian troops, the remaining forces attacked the Livonians and Lithuanians. In December 1577, the Lithuanians took the heavily fortified Wenden castle with a surprise attack.
In 1578, Russian troops launched a counteroffensive and took the city of Oberpalen and laid siege to Wenden. Sapieha's Lithuanian detachment united with the Swedes advancing from the north, and in October attacked the Russian troops at Venden. The Tatar cavalry fled and the Russians settled in a fortified camp. At night, four governors - Ivan Golitsyn, okolnich Fyodor Sheremetev, Prince Paletsky and clerk Shchelkanov, fled with the cavalry. The enemy captured a camp with heavy siege weapons.
It is worth noting that these operations were conducted by the Lithuanian magnates as a whole on an initiative basis, it was a "private war" with Moscow. Moscow had a truce with Stefan. In addition, the new Polish king was at war with the separatists - residents of the city of Danzig, who refused to recognize Stephen as king because he violated their rights. Stephen besieged a large seaside city until the end of 1577, after which he made peace on conditions quite favorable for Danzig.
In the summer of 1576, Stephen suggested that Moscow maintain the truce. However, he insulted Ivan, in the letter the Russian ruler was called not a tsar, but a grand duke, and it also contained several other provisions that were unacceptable for the then diplomatic etiquette. In 1577, Stefan Batory expressed outrage at the invasion of Russian troops into Livonia. The king reproached Ivan the Terrible for taking cities from him. The king replied: “We, with God's will, have cleared our fatherland, the Livonian land, and you would have put off your annoyance. It was not suitable for you to intervene in the Livonian land …”.
In January 1578, the great Polish ambassadors of the Mazovian governor Stanislav Kryisky and the Minsk governor Nikolai Sapega arrived in Moscow and began to talk about "eternal peace." But both sides put forward such conditions that it was not possible to conclude peace. In addition to Livonia, Courland and Polotsk, the tsar demanded the return of Kiev, Kanev, Vitebsk. Also, Ivan Vasilyevich derived the genealogy of the Lithuanian princes from the Polotsk Rogvolodovichs, therefore Poland and Lithuania were declared to them "fiefdoms" - "our fiefdoms, because of this princely family there was no one left, and the royal sister to the state is not a father-in-law." Nevertheless, another ceasefire was signed in Moscow for three years.
But the Polish elite was not going to fulfill the terms of the armistice. Stephen and his henchmen had plans for widespread territorial conquests in Russia. Stefan did not rely on Polish and Lithuanian troops, who had weak discipline, and hired several regiments of professional infantry in Germany, and also bought the best cannons in Western Europe and hired artillerymen. In the summer of 1579, Batory sent an ambassador to Moscow with a declaration of war. Already in August, the Polish army surrounded Polotsk. The garrison stubbornly defended itself for three weeks, but capitulated at the end of August.
Bathory was actively preparing for a new campaign. He borrowed money everywhere from tycoons and usurers. His brother the prince of Sedmigrad sent him a large detachment of Hungarians. The Polish gentry refused to serve in the infantry, so Batory first introduced military service in Poland. In the royal estates, out of 20 peasants, one was taken away, who, due to the length of service, was freed forever himself and his offspring from all peasant duties. The Russian command did not know where the enemy was attacking, so the regiments were sent to Novgorod, Pskov, Smolensk, and the Baltic states. In the south, it was still unsettled, and there it was necessary to put up strong barriers, and in the north it was necessary to fight off the Swedes.
In September 1580, the army of Batory took Velikie Luki. At the same time, there were direct negotiations for peace with Poland. Ivan the Terrible gave way to Polotsk, Courland and 24 cities in Livonia. But Stephen demanded all of Livonia, Velikiye Luki, Smolensk, Pskov and Novgorod. Polish and Lithuanian troops ravaged the Smolensk region, the Seversk land, the Ryazan region, and the south-west of the Novgorod region. Lithuanian magnates Ostrog and Vishnevets, with the help of light cavalry detachments, plundered the Chernihiv region. The cavalry of the gentry Jan Solomeretsky ravaged the outskirts of Yaroslavl. However, the Polish army was unable to develop an offensive against Smolensk. In October 1580, the Polish-Lithuanian army, headed by the Orsha headman Filon Kmita, who really wanted to become the governor of Smolensk, was defeated by a Russian detachment under the leadership of Ivan Buturlin in the battle near the village of Nastasino and on the Spassky meadows. In the summer of 1581, a successful campaign in Lithuania was made by an army under the command of Dmitry Khvorostinin, defeating the Lithuanians in the battle of Shklov and forcing Stephen Batory to postpone the attack on Pskov.
In February 1581, the Lithuanians occupied the Kholm fortress and burned Staraya Russa. The Dorpat region was devastated to the Russian border. Meanwhile, Bathory was preparing for the third campaign. He borrowed money from the Duke of Prussia, the Saxon and Brandenburg electors. At the Polish Diet, convened in February 1581, the king announced that if the Poles did not want or did not hope to conquer the entire Muscovy, then at least they should not lay down their arms until they secured the whole of Livonia. Negotiations with Moscow also continued. The new tsarist ambassadors agreed to transfer to Stephen all of Livonia, except for four cities. But Batory still demanded not only the whole of Livonia, but also added to the demands the concession of Sebezh and the payment of 400 thousand Hungarian gold for military expenses. This pissed Grozny out of himself, and he replied with a sharp letter: “It is clear that you want to fight incessantly, and you are not looking for peace. We would have lost to you and all of Livonia, but you can't console you with that. And after that you will still shed blood. And now you have asked the former ambassadors for one thing, and now you are asking for another, Sebezh. Give it to you, you will ask for more, and you won’t set any measure for yourself. We are looking for how to calm the Christian blood, and you are looking for how to fight. So why should we put up with you? And without the world it will be the same”.
The negotiations ended, and Batory set out on a new campaign. He sent Ivan an abusive letter, in which he called him the pharaoh of Moscow, a wolf that invaded the sheep, and finally challenged him to a duel. On August 18, 1581, Stephen's army laid siege to Pskov, planning to go to Novgorod and Moscow after the capture of the city. The heroic defense of the Russian fortress lasted until February 4, 1582. The Polish-Lithuanian army, reinforced by mercenaries, was unable to take the Russian stronghold, suffered heavy losses and was demoralized. The failure at Pskov forced Stefan Batory to negotiate peace.
For Moscow, the situation is unfavorable. The main forces were associated with the struggle with the Polish-Lithuanian army, and at this time in the north the Swedish troops were advancing. At the beginning of 1579 the Swedes devastated the Oreshek fortress district. In 1580, King Johan III of Sweden, the author of the "great eastern program" designed to cut off the Russian kingdom from the Baltic and White Seas, approved P. De la Gardie's plan to reach Novgorod and at the same time attack Oreshek or Narva. Swedish troops under the command of De la Gardie captured all of Estonia and part of Ingermanland (Izhora land). In November 1580, the Swedes took Korela, and in 1581 they occupied Narva, then Ivangorod and Koporye. The seizures of cities were accompanied by the mass extermination of the Russian people. The Swedes “cleaned up” the territory for themselves. Thus, Tsar Ivan the Terrible was forced to negotiate with Poland, hoping to conclude with her then an alliance against Sweden.
Siege of Pskov by King Stephen Bathory in 1581. K. Bryullov
Yam-Zapolsky world
Peace negotiations began on December 13, 1581. The ambassadors of the Polish king Stefan Batory with the mediation of the papal legate Antonio Possevino were the governor of Braslav Janusz Zbarazh, the governor of Vilnius and the hetman of Lithuania Radziwill, secretary Mikhail Garaburd. The Russian side was represented by the Kashinsky governor Dmitry Yeletsky, the Kozelsky governor Roman Olferyev, the clerk N. N. Vereshchagin. Yam Zapolsky was burned, so negotiations took place in the village of Kiverova Gora.
The negotiations were stormy. According to the terms of the armistice, Russia abandoned in favor of the Commonwealth of all its possessions in the Baltic States and from the possessions of its allies and vassals: from Courland, yielding it to Poland; from 40 cities in Livonia passing to Poland; from the city of Polotsk with a povet (district); from the town of Velizh with the surrounding area. Rzeczpospolita returned to the tsar the Pskov indigenous lands captured during the last war: the “suburbs” of Pskov (this was the name of the cities of the Pskov land - Opochka, Porkhov, etc.); Velikiye Luki, Nevel, Kholm, Sebezh are the original Novgorod and Tver lands.
Thus, in the Livonian War, Russia did not achieve its goals of conquering the Baltic states, ending the war within the same borders as it began. The Yam-Zapolsky peace did not resolve the fundamental contradictions between the Russian kingdom and the Commonwealth, postponing their resolution to a more distant prospect.
The 19th century historian N. M. Karamzin, evaluating this world, called it "the most disadvantageous and dishonest for Russia peace of all that had been concluded with Lithuania until that time." However, he was clearly mistaken. During that period, some Russian historians and publicists, relying on Western sources, created a black myth about the "bloody despot and murderer" Ivan the Terrible. In reality, in solving the most important national problems (Kazan, Astrakhan, Siberia), expanding the territory, increasing the population, building fortresses and cities, strengthening the position of the Russian kingdom in the world arena, Ivan Vasilyevich was one of the most successful Russian rulers, which is why he is hated on West, and in Russia all sorts of Westernizers and liberals. Ivan the Terrible proved to be a wise ruler, showing the need to control the Russian Baltic and return the Western Russian lands (Polotsk, Kiev, etc.). Russia did not end the war as planned, but did not yield its existing positions. The West, having organized a whole anti-Russian coalition, including the Crimean Khanate and Turkey, could not crush the Russian state.
