Author: Charles River Editors
Narrator: KC Wayman
Unabridged: 1 hr 35 min
Format: Digital Audiobook
Publisher: Findaway Voices
Published: 12/02/2023
The Great Northern War, fought from 1700-1721, gets its name from the fact the war focused on the Baltic, but the battlefields extended into Germany and deep into Poland and Ukraine. Sweden was a military power with a small empire in the Baltic, while Russia was still a landlocked place, backward when compared to the rest of Europe, not very powerful, and highly xenophobic. The Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth was still powerful, and the Cossacks were still free. Moreover, despite the fact the Ottoman Empire was weakened, it held sway in the Balkans and deep into Eastern Europe, and the Krim Tatars were still raiding into Ukraine, Russia, and Poland for slaves. The Great Northern War would involve the Ottomans and the Tatars as well.
Given the length of the conflict, perhaps it’s not surprising that other Western European kingdoms ended up in the mix. Brandenburg-Prussia was involved in the later phases of the war - Frederick William was an elector of Brandenburg and had just been granted the right (by the Holy Roman Emperor) to call himself king in Prussia. He held both titles, but there was still a formal separation between Brandenburg and Prussia. Frederick William was strongly interested in acquiring some or all of Pomerania, a region on the Baltic coast, particularly in acquiring a port, which would eliminate paying Swedish tolls in Swedish-controlled ports.
Ultimately, the most important aspect of the war is that it laid the foundations for the Russian Empire. By 1718, the Russians had conquered most of Finland, the port of Riga, and the Swedish city of Vyborg. These gains in the Baltic Sea strengthened the burgeoning Russian Empire and provided ports and access to the rich resources of Finland, including valuable meat and lumber. Peter also proved to be a rather benevolent conqueror, allowing these regions to maintain both their faith and culture.
The Cold War moved into one of its most dangerous phases after Brezhnev’s death as both sides deployed nuclear weapons within alarming proximity in Europe. A NATO exercise, “Operation Able Archer,” almost led to a Soviet miscalcul...
Russia has been depicted by the media as a cyberspace boogeyman, a nation of hackers that can and will exploit any and all vulnerabilities of private organizations, government entities, and social media platforms. Over the last 10 years, as hackers ...
At 01:23:40 on April 26th 1986, Alexander Akimov pressed the emergency shutdown button at Chernobyl's fourth nuclear reactor. It was an act that forced the permanent evacuation of a city, killed thousands, and crippled the Soviet Union. The event sp...
The three modern Baltic states - Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia - may occupy small tracts of lands bordering the Baltic Sea, but their respective histories are unique. Latvia, like its neighbours, was settled thousands of years ago, with a number of...
Famine – one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse in the Book of Revelation – continues to be one of the most crippling and destructive scourges of humanity. This inexorable affliction, traumatically fatal in the worst-case scenarios,...
"A book that belongs on the shelf alongside The Gulag Archipelago. -- Kirkus Reviews"A short, haunting and beautifully written book." -- The Wall Street JournalThe Gulag was a monstrous network of labor camps that held and killed millions of prisone...
In the wake of taking Constantinople, the Ottoman Empire would spend the next few centuries expanding its size, power, and influence, bumping up against Eastern Europe and becoming one of the world’s most important geopolitical players. It wa...
“Had I just 10,000 Cossacks, I would have conquered the whole world.” – Napoleon BonaparteThe history of Ukraine is a fascinating story of how cultures, political systems, religions, and power have met, intersected, morphed, and ex...
Wedged in the North Caucasus mountain range and bordering the Caspian Sea, Dagestan is a true meeting point of cultures, religions and geopolitical rivalries. A crossroad between east and west, Dagestan has been vitally important at different times...