Yaroslav F. International Relations of the Mid-Seventeenth Century and the Treaty of Vilnius (1656) between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russia.

The principal subject of the dissertation is international diplomacy of the mid-seventeenth century, which led by way of Austrian mediation to negotiations between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Muscovy at the village of Nemezis near Vilnius. The negotiations lasted from 22 August to 3 November 1656. The author also analyzes Ukrainian foreign policy, which developed in the context of Polish-Muscovite rapprochement, and the attitude of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky to the Vilnius negotiations. Throughout the first half of 1655, the Commonwealth was in a position to foresee and prevent the attack of King Charles X Gustavus of Sweden, but the obstacle here was the shortsighted policy of King John Casimir and his supporters. Austrian diplomacy carefully attempted to play a mediating role in bringing about a peace settlement between the Polish king and the Muscovite tsar. After long hesitation, the Swedish king finally decided on an invasion of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In the second half of 1655, questions of foreign policy in East Central Europe were most strongly influenced by the Swedish and Muscovite conquests in Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Muscovite tsar was strongly opposed to the presence of Swedish forces in Lithuania and the Polish part of Livonia. As relations between Aleksei Mikhailovich and Charles X Gustavus deteriorated, Austrian proposals of mediation in the drafting of a peace treaty found favor in Muscovy. Even before the tsar granted his first audience to the Austrian envoys to Moscow, Allegretti and Lorbach, toward the end of December 1655, he let the Polish king know at least three times in dealings with the Lithuanians that he was prepared to receive his envoy in Moscow to draw up a peace treaty. The most intensive preparations for the Vilnius Commission between Muscovy and the Commonwealth took place in the first half of 1656. Talks between the Polish envoy Piotr Gali?ski and the tsar led to a truce before the Muscovite-Polish meeting. In July, plenipotentiary envoys were dispatched to Vilnius by John Casimir from Warsaw and by Aleksei Mikhailovich from Polatsk to work out the articles of a peace treaty. The process of reconciling Muscovy with the Commonwealth affected the very foundations of Ukrainian foreign policy. Bohdan Khmelnytsky took an extremely negative attitude to the prospect of peace between these powers, as it threatened the idea of uniting all the Ukrainian lands within the historical boundaries of Princely Rus'. The negotiations that took place in the village of Nemezis near Vilnius on 22 August-3 November 1656 may be divided into four stages: a) 22-26 August: from the beginning of the commission's proceedings to the official proposal of the Muscovite grand envoys that Aleksei Mikhailovich be elected king of the Commonwealth vivente rege; b) 26 August-7 September: from initial discussions of the idea of electing the tsar to the dispatch of couriers to John Casimir and Aleksei Mikhailovich for additional instructions; c) 7 September-19 October: from the decision to dispatch couriers from Vilnius for new instructions to Krasinski's receipt of definitive instructions from John Casimir and the Senate; d) 19 October-3 November: from the resumption of discussions between the Polish-Lithuanian and Muscovite envoys on the basis of new directives to the signing of the Treaty of Vilnius. Bohdan Khmelnytsky dispatched his envoys to the Vilnius negotiations, issuing instructions to them in Chyhyryn on 5 August 1656. This diplomatic mission was headed by Captain Roman Haponenko. Having arrived in Riga on 11 September 1656, he was allowed to proceed to Vilnius at some time between 23 and 29 September, reaching the site of the negotiations only on 4 October. But he and his associates were not admitted to sessions. Haponenko's first reports in Chyhyryn on the results of his diplomatic mission met with a negative reaction from Khmelnytsky. At that time the hetman was resolutely completing preparations for a campaign against Poland in alliance with the prince of Transylvania and the king of Sweden. Colonel Anton Zhdanovych commanded the Ukrainian Cossack regiments that set out to join forces with Prince Gyorgy Rakoczi II against John Casimir.