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

• Published in: Harvard Ukrainian studies Vol. 31; no. 1/4; pp. 159 - 176
• Main Author: Frost, Robert I.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute 01.01.2009; Harvard University, Ukrainian Research Institute; Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University
• Subjects: Armed Forces; Armies; Army; Book publishing; Commonwealth; Confederation; Councils; English language; Historians; History; Literary translation; Military engagements; Polish language; Political campaigns; Political reform; Politics; Russian language; Russian politics; Subtitles & subtitling; Swedish language; The Battle and Its Aftermath; Thrones; Treaties; Tsars; War; Poland; Lithuania; Russia
• ISSN: 0363-5570; 2328-5400

For Europe in general, and Poland-Lithuania in particular, Poltava seemed to be a battle which, perhaps more than any other event, opened the way to an epoch marked by Russian military, political, and cultural hegemony in eastern and northern Europe. [...]the publishers of the English translation of Peter Englund's classic account of the battle felt that the subtitle, The Birth of the Russian Empire, would appeal to readers more than the original Swedish version, Berättelsen om en armés undergång (The Story of an Army's Downfall), which far better reflects what the book is about.3 Feldman viewed Russia's triumph with undisguised hostility, as have many Polish historians. Peter was free to influence the final political settlement, which he had certainly not had the opportunity to do in 1710-13, when calls for the total evacuation of Russian troops from the Commonwealth gave Augustus a potentially vital political weapon. [...]more research is done on the vital period from 1709 to 1716-in particular on Lithuania, often taken to be dominated by pro-Russian sentiment, but which raised the taxes voted by the Warsaw Council much more rapidly and effectively than Poland-historians will not be able to assess whether a different outcome was possible.