Polish–Russian War (1609–1618)
The Polish–Russian War was a conflict fought between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Tsardom of Russia from 1609 to 1618.
Russia had been experiencing the Time of Troubles since the death of Tsar Feodor I in 1598, which caused political instability and a violent succession crisis upon the extinction of the Rurik dynasty; furthermore, a major famine ravaged the country from 1601 to 1603. Poland exploited Russia's civil wars when powerful members of the Polish szlachta began influencing Russian boyars and supporting successive pretenders to the title of tsar of Russia against the crowned tsars Boris Godunov and Vasili IV Shuysky. From 1605, Polish nobles conducted a series of skirmishes until the death of False Dmitry I in 1606, and they invaded again in 1607 until Russia formed a military alliance with Sweden two years later. The King of Poland, Sigismund III Vasa, declared war on Russia in response in 1609, aiming to gain territorial concessions and to weaken Sweden's ally. Polish forces won many early victories such as the 1610 Battle of Klushino. In 1610, Polish units entered Moscow and Sweden withdrew from the military alliance with Russia, instead triggering the Ingrian War of 1610-1617 between Sweden and Russia.
Sigismund's son, Prince Władysław of Poland, was elected tsar of Russia by the Seven Boyars in September 1610, but Sigismund refused to allow his son to become the new tsar unless the Muscovites agreed to convert from Eastern Orthodoxy to Catholicism, and the pro-Polish boyars ended their support for the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 1611, Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky formed a new army to launch a popular revolt against the Polish occupation. The Poles captured Smolensk in June 1611, but began to retreat after they were ousted from Moscow in September 1612. In March 1613 the Russian Zemsky Sobor elected Michael Romanov, the son of Patriarch Filaret of Moscow, as tsar of Russia, thus inaugurating the Romanov dynasty and ending the Time of Troubles. With little military action between 1612 and 1617, the war finally ended in 1618 with the Truce of Deulino, which granted the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth certain territorial concessions but preserved Russia's independence.
The war was the first major sign of the rivalry and uneasy relations between Poland and Russia which would last for centuries. Its aftermath had a long-lasting impact on Russian society, fostering a negative stereotype of Poland among Russians and, most notably, giving rise to the Romanov dynasty which ruled Russia for three centuries until the February Revolution in 1917. It also left a noticeable mark on Russian culture, with renowned writers and composers portraying the war in works such as the play Boris Godunov by Alexander Pushkin, other operas including A Life for the Tsar by Mikhail Glinka and Pan Voyevoda by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov as well as films such as Minin and Pozharsky and 1612.
Name
In Polish historiography, two military interventions immediately preceding the war, the aim of which was to place a tsar loyal to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on the Russian throne are called the Dimitriads and are considered a separate conflict: the First Dymitriad and Second Dymitriad. The Polish–Russian War can subsequently be divided into two wars of 1609–1611 and 1617–1618, and may or may not include the 1617–1618 campaign, which is sometimes referred to as Chodkiewicz Campaign. According to Russian historiography, the chaotic events of the war fall into the "Time of Troubles". The conflict with Poles is commonly called the Polish Invasion, Polish Intervention, or more specifically the Polish Intervention of the Early Seventeenth Century.Background
Prelude to invasions
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In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Russia was in a state of political and economic crisis. After the death of Tsar Ivan IV in 1584, and the death of his son Dimitri in 1591, several factions competed for the tsar's throne. In 1598, Boris Godunov was crowned to the Russian throne, marking the end of the centuries long rule of the Rurik dynasty. While his policies were rather moderate and well-intentioned, his rule was marred by the general perception of its questionable legitimacy and allegations of his involvement in orchestrating the assassination of Dimitri. While Godunov managed to put the opposition to his rule under control, he did not manage to crush it completely. To add to his troubles, the first years of the 17th century were exceptionally cold. The drop in temperature was felt all over the world and was most likely caused by a severe eruption of a volcano in South America. In Russia, it resulted in a great famine that swept through the country from 1601 to 1603.
In late 1600, a Polish diplomatic mission led by Chancellor Lew Sapieha with Eliasz Pielgrzymowski and Stanisław Warszycki arrived in Moscow and proposed an alliance between the Commonwealth and Russia, which would include a future personal union. They proposed that after one monarch's death without heirs, the other would become the ruler of both countries. However, Tsar Godunov declined the union proposal and settled on extending the Treaty of Jam Zapolski, which ended the Lithuanian wars of the 16th century, by 22 years.
Sigismund and the Commonwealth magnates knew full well that they were not capable of any serious invasion of Russia; the Commonwealth army was too small, its treasury always empty, and the war lacked popular support. However, as the situation in Russia deteriorated, Sigismund and many Commonwealth magnates, especially those with estates and forces near the Russian border, began to look for a way to profit from the chaos and weakness of their eastern neighbour. This proved easy, as in the meantime many Russian boyars, disgruntled by the ongoing civil war, tried to entice various neighbors, including the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, into intervening. Some of them looked to their own profits, trying to organize support for their own ascension to the Russian throne. Others looked to their western neighbor, the Commonwealth, and its attractive Golden Freedoms, and together with some Polish politicians planned for some kind of union between those two states. Yet others tried to tie their fates with that of Sweden in what became known as the De la Gardie Campaign and the Ingrian War.
Advocates for a union of Poland–Lithuania with Russia proposed a plan similar to the original Polish–Lithuanian Union of Lublin involving a common foreign policy and military; the right for nobility to choose the place where they would live and to buy landed estates; removal of barriers for trade and transit; introduction of a single currency; increased religious tolerance in Russia ; and the sending of boyar children for education in more developed Polish academies. However, this project never gained much support. Many boyars feared that the union with the predominantly Catholic Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania would endanger Russia's Orthodox traditions and opposed anything that threatened Russian culture, especially the policies aimed at curtailing the influence of the Orthodox Church, intermarriage and education in Polish schools that had already led to successful Polonization of the Ruthenian lands under Polish control.
Polish invasion (1604–1606)
For most of the 17th century, Sigismund III was occupied with internal problems of his own, like the Nobles' Rebellion in the Commonwealth and the wars with Sweden and in Moldavia. However, the impostor False Dmitry I appeared in Poland in 1603 and soon found enough support among powerful magnates such as Michał Wiśniowiecki, Lew, and Jan Piotr Sapieha, who provided him with funds for a campaign against Godunov. Commonwealth magnates looked forward to material gains from the campaign and control over Russia through False Dmitriy. In addition, both Polish magnates and Russian boyars advanced plans for a union between the Commonwealth and Russia, similar to the one Lew Sapieha had discussed in 1600. Finally, the proponents of Catholicism saw in Dmitry a tool to spread the influence of their Church eastwards, and after promises of a united Catholic dominated Russo-Polish entity waging a war on the Ottoman Empire, Jesuits also provided him with funds and education. Although Sigismund declined to support Dmitry officially with the full might of the Commonwealth, the Polish king was always happy to support pro-Catholic initiatives and provided him with the sum of 4,000 zlotys–enough for a few hundred soldiers. Nonetheless, some of Dmitriy's supporters, especially among those involved in the rebellion, actively worked to have Dmitry replace Sigismund. In exchange, in June 1604 Dmitry promised the Commonwealth "half of Smolensk territory". Many were skeptical about the future of this endeavor. Jan Zamoyski, opposed to most of Sigismund's policies, later referred to the entire False Dmitry I affair as a "comedy worthy of Plautus or Terentius".When Boris Godunov heard about the pretender, he claimed that the man was just a runaway monk called Grigory Otrepyev, although on what information he based this claim is unclear. Godunov's support among the Russians began to wane, especially when he tried to spread counter-rumors. Some of the Russian boyars also claimed to accept Dmitry as such support gave them legitimate reasons not to pay taxes to Godunov.
Dmitry attracted a number of followers, formed a small army, and, supported by approximately 3500 soldiers of the Commonwealth magnates' private armies and the mercenaries bought by Dmitriy's own cash, rode to Russia in June 1604. Some of Godunov's other enemies, including approximately 2,000 southern Cossacks, joined Dimitry's forces on his way to Moscow. Dmitriy's forces fought two engagements with reluctant Russian soldiers; his army won the first at Novhorod-Siverskyi, soon capturing Chernigov, Putivl, Sevsk, and Kursk, but badly lost the second Battle of Dobrynichi and nearly disintegrated. Dmitry's cause was only saved by the news of the death of Tsar Boris Godunov.
The sudden death of the Tsar on 13 April 1605 removed the main barrier to further advances by Dimitry. Russian troops began to defect to his side, and, on 1 June, boyars in Moscow imprisoned the newly crowned tsar, Boris's son Feodor II, and the boy's mother, later brutally murdering them. On 20 June the impostor made his triumphal entry into Moscow, and on 21 July he was crowned Tsar by a new Patriarch of his own choosing, the Greek Cypriot Patriarch Ignatius, who as bishop of Ryazan had been the first church leader to recognize Dmitry as Tsar. The alliance with Poland was furthered by Dimitriy's marriage with the daughter of Jerzy Mniszech, Marina Mniszech, a Polish noblewoman with whom Dmitry had fallen in love while in Poland. The new Tsarina outraged many Russians by refusing to convert from Catholicism to the Russian Orthodox faith. Commonwealth king Sigismund was a prominent guest at this wedding. Marina soon left to join her husband in Moscow, where she was crowned a Tsarina in May.
While Dmitry's rule itself was nondescript and devoid of significant blunders, his position was weak. Many boyars felt they could gain more influence, even the throne, for themselves, and many were still wary of Polish cultural influence, especially in view of Dmitriy's court being increasingly dominated by the aliens he brought with himself from Poland. The Golden Freedoms, declaring all nobility equal, that were supported by lesser nobility, threatened the most powerful of the boyars. Thus the boyars, headed by Prince Vasily Shuyski, began to plot against Dmitry and his pro-Polish faction, accusing him of homosexuality, spreading Roman Catholicism and Polish customs, and selling Russia to Jesuits and the Pope. They gained popular support, especially as Dmitry was visibly supported by a few hundred irregular Commonwealth forces, which still garrisoned Moscow, and often engaged in various criminal acts, angering the local population.
On the morning of 17 May 1606, about two weeks after the marriage, conspirators stormed the Kremlin. Dmitry tried to flee through a window but broke his leg in the fall. One of the plotters shot him dead on the spot. At first, the body was put on display, but it was later cremated; the ashes were reportedly shot from a cannon toward Poland. Dmitriy's reign had lasted a mere ten months. Vasili Shuyski took his place as Tsar. About five hundred of Dmitriy's Commonwealth supporters were killed, imprisoned, or forced to leave Russia.