But before Muscovy thus became an independent power, it had taken the greatest of steps towards growing into Russia. ♦Annexation of Novgorod. 1470;♦ Novgorod the Great, the only Russian rival of Moscow, first lost its northern territory, and then itself became part of the Muscovite dominion. ♦of Viatka, 1478;
of Tver, 1493.♦ The commonwealth of Viatka, the principality of Tver, and some small appanages of the house of Moscow followed. ♦Reign of Basil Ivanovitch, 1505-1533.
Annexation of Pskof and Riazan.♦ The annexation of what remained, as Pskof and Riazan, was only a question of time, and it came in the next reign. Of the three works which were needful for the full growth of the new Russia, two were accomplished. ♦Russia united and independent.♦ The Russian state was one, and it was independent. And the third work, that of winning back the lost Russian lands, had already begun.
♦Survey at the end of the fifteenth century.♦
Thus, at the end of the fifteenth century, five powers held the Baltic coast. Sweden held the west coast from the Danish frontier northward, with both sides of the gulf of Bothnia and both sides of the gulf of Finland. Denmark held the extreme western coast and the isle of Gotland. Poland and Lithuania had a small seaboard indeed compared to their inland extent. Poland had only the Pomeranian and Prussian coast which she had just won from the Knights. Lithuania barely touched the sea between Prussia and Curland. To the west of the Polish coast lay the now Germanized lands of Pomerania and Mecklenburg. To the north-west lay the coast of the German military Order, under Polish vassalage in Prussia, independent in its northern possessions. Thus almost the whole Baltic coast was held by Teutonic powers; the Slavonic powers still lie mainly inland. The Polish frontier towards the Empire has been cut down to the limit which it kept till the end. Pomerania, Silesia, a great part of the mark of Brandenburg, have fallen away from the Polish realm. On the other hand, that realm and its confederate Lithuania have grown wonderfully to the east at the cost of divided and dependent Russia, and have begun to fall back again before Russia one and independent. Bohemia, enlarged by Silesia and Lusatia, has entered so thoroughly into the German world as almost to pass out of our sight.
§ 4. The Growth of Russia and Sweden.
♦Changes of the last four centuries.♦
The work of the last four centuries on the Baltic coast has been to drive back the Scandinavian power, after a vast momentary advance, wholly to the west of the Baltic—to give nearly the whole eastern coast to Russia—to make the whole southern coast German. These changes involve the wiping out, first of the German military Order, and then of Poland and Lithuania. ♦Growth of Russia and creation of Prussia.♦ This last change involves the growth of Russia, and the creation of Prussia in the modern sense, a sense so strangely different from its earlier meaning. These two have been the powers by which Sweden and Denmark have been cut short, by which Poland and Lithuania have been swallowed up. In this last work they indeed had a third confederate. Still the share of Austria in the overthrow of Poland was in a manner incidental. But the existence of such a Polish and Lithuanian state as stood at the end of the fifteenth, or even of the seventeenth, century was inconsistent with the existence of either Russia or Prussia as great European powers.
The period with which we have now to deal takes in only the former stage of this process. Russia advances; Prussia in the modern sense comes into being. ♦Greatness of Sweden.♦ But Sweden is still the most advancing power of all; and, if Denmark falls back, it is before the power of Sweden. The Hansa too and the Knights pass away; Sweden is the ruling power of the Baltic.
The sixteenth century saw the fall of both branches of the Teutonic Order. Out of the fall of one of them came the beginnings of modern Prussia. ♦Separation of the Prussian and Livonian knights. 1515.♦ The two branches of the Order were separated; the Livonian lands had an independent Master. ♦Beginning of the Duchy of Prussia. 1525.♦ Before long the Prussian Grand Master, Albert of Brandenburg, changed from the head of a Catholic religious order into a Lutheran temporal prince, holding the hereditary duchy of Prussia as a Polish fief. ♦Geographical position of Prussia.♦ That duchy had so strange a frontier towards the kingdom that it could not fail sooner or later either to be swallowed up by the kingdom which hemmed it in, or else to make its way out of its geographical bonds. ♦Union of Prussia and Brandenburg. 1611.♦ When the Prussian duchy and the mark of Brandenburg came into the hands of one prince, when the dominions of that prince were enlarged by the union of Brandenburg and Pomerania, the second of these solutions became only a question of time. ♦Prussia independent of Poland. 1647.♦ The first formal step towards it was the release of the duchy from all dependence on Poland. Prussia became a distinct state, one now essentially German, but lying beyond the bounds of the Empire.
As the rights of the Empire had been formally cut short when Prussia passed under Polish vassalage, they were also formally cut short by the dissolution of the northern branch of the Teutonic order. ♦Fall of the Livonian Order. 1558-1561.♦ The rule of the Livonian Knights survived the secularization of the Prussian duchy by forty years; their dominion then fell asunder. ♦Duchy of Curland.♦ As in the case of Prussia, part of their territory, Curland and Semigallia, was kept by the Livonian Master Godhard Kettler, as an hereditary duchy under Polish vassalage. The rest of the lands of the order were parted out among the chief powers of the Baltic. ♦Momentary kingdom of Livonia.♦ A Livonian kingdom under the Danish prince Magnus was but for a moment. ♦Denmark takes Dago and Oesel.♦ Denmark in the end received the islands of Dago and Oesel, her last conquests east of the Baltic. ♦Sweden takes Esthland.♦ Sweden advanced south of the Finnish gulf, taking the greater part of Esthland. ♦Livland goes to Poland and Russia.♦ Northern Livland fell to Russia, the southern part to Poland. ♦All Livland Polish. 1582.♦ Twenty years later all Livland became a Polish possession.