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Treaty of Thorn (1709)

Concluded on 9 October 1709, the Treaty of Thorn was an agreement signed in Thorn (Toruń) between Augustus the Strong of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and his counterpart, Peter the Great the Tsar of Russia. Through this agreement, the two parties revived an alliance from an earlier treaty between them in 1699, which their common rival Charles XII of Sweden had dismantled through the 1706 Treaty of Altranstädt. In the 1709 treaty, the two parties agreed to restore the Polish crown to Augustus among various other provisions with different implications for both parties and their respective nations.[1] A close examination of the background to the agreement as well as the terms, implementation, and implications of the Treaty of Thorn underscores its significance in marking the Tsar’s and Russia’s ascendance into a powerful regional player in northeastern Europe.

Type

Alliance

9 October 1709 (1709-10-09)

Thorn (Toruń)

Russian

Background[edit]

During the Great Northern War, a resounding Russian victory had brought down Charles XII and his Polish and Ukrainian allies at Poltava in June 1709.[2] Russian Tsar Peter the Great had earned a decisive defeat of the Swedish at the Battle of Poltava, in the process giving him the upper hand in the course of the conflict.[1] The destruction of the main Swedish army and resultant exile of King Charles XII of Sweden to the Ottoman Empire paved the way for the return of Augustus the Strong, earlier dethroned as Polish king by Charles XII in the Altranstädt Treaty in 1706. Augustus then successfully marched into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and reclaimed the Polish crown from Stanisław Leszczyński, ally to Charles XII. The territory that Augustus had re-conquered in 1709 encompassed the Polish city of Thorn, where Augustus would then meet with the Tsar Peter the Great to consider and implement terms for a common policy in relation to governance in northeastern Europe. Notably, the Battle of Poltava virtually became the turning point of the war in every respect, not only deciding the outcome of the war but also the course of the reigns of the monarchs involved and the fates of their nations.[1]

Bushkovitch, Paul (2004). Peter the Great: The struggle for power, 1671–1725. Cambridge University Press LeDonne, John (2009).

Poltava and the geopolitics of Western Eurasia. Harvard Ukrainian Studies Anisimov, Evgeniĭ Viktorovich (1993).

The reforms of Peter the Great. Progress through coercion in Russia. The New Russian history. M.E. Sharpe Frost, Robert I (2009).

"Everyone understood what it meant": The impact of the Battle of Poltava on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 31.1/4, pp. 159-176 Evans, RJW, and Peter H. Wilson. The Holy Roman Empire, 1495-1806: A European Perspective. Brill, 2012.