"Northern Wars" is a term used for a series of wars fought in northern and northeastern Europe from the 16th to the 18th century, primarily between the territorial rivals of the

Swedish Empire The Swedish Empire or the Great Power era () was the period in Swedish history spanning much of the 17th and early 18th centuries during which Sweden became a European great power that exercised territorial control over much of the Baltic regi ...

Tsardom of Russia The Tsardom of Russia, also known as the Tsardom of Moscow, was the centralized Russian state from the assumption of the title of tsar by Ivan the Terrible, Ivan IV in 1547 until the foundation of the Russian Empire by Peter the Great in 1721. ...

, Poland–Lithuania, and

Denmark–Norway Denmark–Norway (Danish language, Danish and Norwegian language, Norwegian: ) is a term for the 16th-to-19th-century multi-national and multi-lingual real unionFeldbæk 1998:11 consisting of the Kingdom of Denmark, the Kingdom of Norway (includ ...

. The

Great Northern War In the Great Northern War (1700–1721) a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in Northern Europe, Northern, Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the ant ...

is generally considered to have concluded the Northern Wars with the decline of Sweden and establishment of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

as the principal power of the region, however there are different scholarly opinions on which war constitutes the First Northern War and an internationally agreed-on nomenclature for these wars has not yet been devised.Frost (2000), p. 13

Conflicts of the Northern Wars

Depending upon what date is chosen for the starting point, the Northern Wars comprise: *The Russo-Swedish War (1554–1557), "First Northern War" according to Arvo Viljanti *The Livonian War (1558–1583), "First Northern War" according to Klaus Zernack **The

Northern Seven Years' War The Northern Seven Years' War (also known as the ''Nordic Seven Years' War'', the ''First Northern War,'' the ''Seven Years' War of the North'' or the ''Seven Years War in Scandinavia'') was fought between the Kingdom of Sweden (1523–1611), K ...

(1563–1570), "First Northern War" according to some Polish historians *The

Russo-Polish War (1654–1667) Armed conflicts between Poland (including the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland) and Russia (including the Soviet Union, the Russian Empire, the Tsardom of Russia and the Principality of Moscow) include: : : ...

, also known as the "Thirteen Years' War"; "First Northern War" according to some Russian historians *The

Second Northern War The second (symbol: s) is a unit of time derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes, and finally to 60 seconds each (24 × 60 × 60 = 86400). The current and formal definition in the International System of ...

(1655–1660), "First Northern War" according to traditional English, German, Russian and Scandinavian historiography, in Poland known as Swedish Deluge *The Scanian War (1674–1679), also called "Swedish-Brandenburgian War" by German historians *The

Conflicts of the Northern Wars

See also

Sources

References

Bibliography