HISTORICAL DICTIONARY A–Z - Russia: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present - page 304

concentrating his offensive on the town of Riga,
which was besieged in the summer of 1656. The
Swedes successfully resisted, driving the Rus-
sians back. After another unsuccessful Russian
offensive in 1658, both sides concluded a truce.
The relative balance of power in the eastern
Baltic changed during the Great Northern War
(1700-1721), which marked the emergence of
Russia as a great European power. After a
Swedish victory at the Battle of Narva (1700),
Peter the Great rebuilt and modernized his
forces and won a decisive victory over his antag-
onist, King Charles XII, at POLTAVA in 1609. An
intermittent war continued for another decade
until the Treaty of Nystadt (1721) recognized
Russia's victories. Twenty years later, encouraged
by the French, King Frederick I launched an ill-
advised attack on Russia to recover the territo-
ries lost at Nystadt. The Russians won at the
Battle of Wilmanstrand in Finland in September
1741. Soon after Empress ELIZABETH , recently
installed on the Russian throne, sought peace
with Sweden. Unable to find a common ground,
the Russians again invaded Finland, winning a
major victory at Helsingfors (Helsinki) in August
1742. One year later at the Treaty of Abo of
August 1743, Russia retained the Finnish terri-
tories it had captured, and the childless King
Frederick I agreed to the election of Elizabeth's
candidate, the future Aldolphus Frederick, as his
successor to the Swedish throne.
Russia and Sweden went to war again in June
1788 when King Gustavus III invaded Russian
Finland without the approval of his Diet (parlia-
ment), hoping to take advantage of Russia's own
war with the Ottoman Empire. After major
defeats at Fredrickshamm (Hamina) and in sev-
eral naval battles and faced with resistance from
his own officers, who considered the war illegal,
Gustavus III led Swedish troops toward St.
Petersburg in the winter of 1790. At the naval
Battle of Svenskund (July 1790), a third of Rus-
sia's fleet was captured or destroyed. One month
later, after Denmark had joined Russia and
attacked the city of Göteborg, the Swedes agreed
to the Treaty of Wereloe with Russia, which
restored the prewar balance of power. The final

confrontation between the two nations took
place in 1808-9 in the course of the Napoleonic
Wars in the aftermath of the Treaty of TILSIT
(1807), which brought French and Russian hos-
tilities to a temporary halt. When King Gustavus
IV refused the French and Russian demand that
Sweden end its alliance with Britain, Czar
ALEXANDER I launched an invasion of Swedish
Finland in February 1808. Rapid Russian victo-
ries in Swedish Finland and an unstable situa-
tion inside Sweden that led to the overthrow of
Gustavus IV allowed Russian troops to enter
northern Sweden. After the new Swedish king,
Charles XIII, sued for peace, both sides signed
the Treaty of Fredrikshamm (September 1809),
by which Sweden relinquished its part of Fin-
land and the Aland Islands to Russia. Finland
became a grand duchy under Russian control
until its independence one century later during
the 1917 Russian Revolution.

Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78
One of 10 wars fought between Russia and the
Ottoman Empire since the late 17th century, the
Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 was the last
major conflict between the two empires prior to
World War I. It differed from prior RUSSO - TURK -
ISH WARS in the degree to which parts of Russian
public opinion affected the Russian government's
policy and to which outside European powers
intervened in shaping the peace settlement
between the two combatants. The most immedi-
ate cause of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78
was the 1875 uprising against Ottoman rule in
the Balkans, that was suppressed by Turkey.
News of heightened Ottoman repression against
Christian subjects in the Balkans reached Russia,
where it was used by the powerful PAN - SLAV
lobby that had emerged during the 1870s to pres-
sure ALEXANDER II to declare war on Turkey.
Although Alexander II and his foreign minister,
Aleksandr GORCHAKOV , were less enthusiastic
about war than the Russian pan-Slavs propo-
nents, Russia did eventually declare war on
Turkey in April 1877 and was soon joined by
Romania. Like other Russo-Turkish wars the