Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | Northern Earthquake (Lecture 9)

Lecture 9: In the period from 1648 to the 1770s, tremendous seismic political convulsions took place in northern and eastern Europe, bringing new dynamic players into the European state system as new factors in diplomatic calculation. We examine the “Baltic Question”: Which power or powers would dominate the commercially important Baltic Sea? Our lecture then surveys the rise and fall of Sweden as a great empire, led by the “Lion of the North,” Gustavus Adolphus, and then Charles XII. We trace the decline of the once mighty Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania and the linked phenomenon of the rise of Russia with an expansive imperial identity from the Great Northern War (1700–1721) under Tsar Peter “the Great” and later the formidable Empress Catherine “the Great”.

Essential Reading:
Ludwig Dehio, The Precarious Balance: Four Centuries of the European Power Struggle, pp. 93–131.

Supplementary Reading:
H. M. Scott, The Emergence of the Eastern Powers, 1756–1775.