The peace of Roskild, which cut short the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway in the northern peninsula, also marks an epoch in the controverted history of the duchies of Sleswick and Holstein. ♦Denmark gives up the sovereignty of the Gottorp lands. 1658.♦ The Danish king gave up the sovereignty of the Gottorp districts of the duchies. Even if that cession implied the surrender of his own feudal superiority over the Gottorp districts of Sleswick, he could not alienate any part of the Imperial rights over Holstein. ♦Fluctuations in the duchies. 1675-1700.♦ This sovereignty, in whatever it consisted, was lost and won several times between king and Duke before the end of the century. ♦Danish possession of Oldenburg. 1678.♦ Meanwhile the Danish crown became possessed of the outlying duchies of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst, which in some sort balanced the Swedish possession of Bremen and Verden.
♦Sweden after the peace of Oliva.♦
The wars and treaties which were ended by the peace of Oliva fixed the boundaries of the Baltic lands for a season. They fixed the home extent of Sweden down to the present century. They cut off Denmark, save its one outpost of Bornholm, from the Baltic itself, as distinguished from the narrow seas which lead to it. They fixed the extent of Poland down to the partitions. What they failed to do for any length of time was to cut off Russia from the Baltic, and to establish Sweden on the Ocean. But for the present we leave Sweden ruling over the whole western and the greater part of the eastern coast of the Northern Mediterranean, and holding smaller possessions both on its southern coast and on the Ocean. The rest of the eastern and southern coast of the Baltic is divided between the Polish fief of Curland, the dominions of the common ruler of Pomerania and Prussia,—now an independent prince in his eastern duchy,—and the small piece of Polish coast placed invitingly between the two parts of his dominions. In her own peninsula Sweden has reached her natural frontier, and has given back what she won for a moment beyond it. While Sweden has this vast extent of coast with comparatively little extent inland, the vast inland region of Poland and Lithuania has hardly any seaboard, and the still vaster inland region of Russia has none at all in Europe, except on the White Sea. Thus the most striking feature of this period is the advance of Sweden; but we have seen that it was also a time of great advance on the part of Russia. It was a time of yet greater advance on that side of her dominion where Russia had no European rivals.
♦Eastern advance of Russia.♦
In the case of Russia, the only European power which could conquer and colonize by land in barbarian regions,[69] her earlier barbarian conquests were absolutely necessary to her existence. No hard line can be drawn between her earliest and her latest conquests, between the first advance of Novgorod and the last conquests in Turkestan. But the advance which immediately followed the deliverance from the Tartar yoke marks a great epoch. The smaller khanats into which the dominion of the Golden Horde had been broken up still kept Russia from the Euxine and the Caspian. ♦Conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan. 1552-1554.♦ The two khanats on the Volga, Kazan and Astrakhan, were subdued by Ivan the Terrible. The coast of the Caspian was now reached. But the khans of Crim remained, unsubdued and dangerous enemies, still cutting off Russia from the Euxine. ♦Superiority over the Don Cossacks. 1577.♦ Yet, even in this direction an advance was made when the Russian supremacy was acknowledged by the Cossacks of the Don. ♦Beginning of Siberian conquest. 1581.
1592-1706.♦ The conquest of the Siberian khanat, with its capital Tobolsk, next followed, and thence, in the course of the next century, the boundless extent of northern Asia was added to the Russian dominion.
§ 5. The Decline of Sweden and Poland.
In the last section we traced out the greatest advance of Sweden and a large advance of Russia, both made at the cost of Poland, that of Sweden also at the cost of Denmark. We saw also the beginnings of a power which we still called Brandenburg rather than Prussia. ♦Growth of Prussia.♦ In the present section, describing the work of the eighteenth century, we have to trace the growth of this last power, which now definitely takes the Prussian name, and which we have to look at in its Prussian character. ♦Decline of Sweden.
Extinction of Poland.♦ The period is marked by the decline of Sweden and the utter wiping out of Poland and Lithuania, Russia and Prussia in different degrees being chief actors in both cases. ♦Kingdom of Prussia. 1701.♦ At the beginning of the period Prussia becomes a kingdom—a sign of advance, though not accompanied by any immediate increase of territory. ♦Empire of Russia. 1721.♦ A little later the ruler of Russia, already Imperial in his own tongue,[70] more definitely takes the Imperial style as Emperor of all the Russias. This might pass as a challenge of the Russian lands, Black, White, and Red, which were still held by Poland.
♦Russia on the Baltic.♦