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126-644: During Russia's Time of Troubles , Vasily IV of Russia was besieged in Moscow by the supporters of the False Dmitry II . Driven to despair by the Polish intervention , he entered into an alliance with Charles IX of Sweden , who was also waging war against Poland. According to the Vyborg Treatise of 1609, the tsar promised to cede Korela Fortress to Sweden in recompense for military support against False Dmitry II and

252-520: A boyar , the son-in-law of Malyuta Skuratov and the brother of Feodor's wife, Irina Godunova ). Feodor produced one child: a daughter, Feodosia, who died at the age of two. According to Dunning, "At the outset of Tsar Fedor's reign, Boris Godunov and other regents moved against a threat emanating from the court faction supporting Ivan the Terrible's youngest son, Dmitrii – the child of Ivan's sixth and last wife, Maria Nagaia. In May, 1591, Tsarevich Dmitrii

378-454: A council of regents to govern in his son's name. Ivan named as regents two leading boyars; Fedor's uncle, Nikita Romanovich Zakharyin-Yuriev (head of the Romanov clan), and Prince Ivan F. Mstislavsky ; he also named two leading members of his own court: a premier prince of the blood, the popular and heroic Prince Ivan Petrovich Shuisky , and Fedor's brother-in-law, Boris Godunov . On the day of

504-561: A direct result of the bold invasion of the country by a man claiming to be Tsarevich Dmitrii, somehow 'miraculously' rescued from the 'usurper' Boris Godunov's alleged assassination attempt in 1591 and now returning to claim the throne from the illegitimate 'false tsar' Boris." Conspiracies were rampant after Feodor's death. Rumors circulated that his younger brother, Dmitry , was still alive and in hiding (despite official accounts that he had been stabbed to death at an early age, by accident or by Godunov's order). Russia's political instability

630-478: A four day battle. Advancing onward to Moscow, the second false Dmitrii set up court in Tushino , and laid siege to Moscow over the next eighteen months. According to Dunning, "Members of the Romanov clan, in particular, flocked to Tushino." In September 1608, Rozynski's men covered the areas west and south of Moscow, while Jan Piotr Sapieha 's men covered the area north, defeating Prince Ivan Shuisky's men, and besieging

756-428: A liar, his act of regicide, his hasty seizure of power without the approval of a zemsky sobor , and his lack of any serious effort to gain the support of the common people all combined to undermine Tsar Vasilii's credibility and to destabilize his reign from the outset." Referred to as the "boyar-tsar", Shuiskii had himself crowned on 1 June, he then stripped Filaret Romanov of his office. Yet, Mikhail Molchanov escaped

882-550: A limit to the Belt Sea. The shallow sills are obstacles to the flow of heavy salt water from the Kattegat into the basins around Bornholm and Gotland . The Kattegat and the southwestern Baltic Sea are well oxygenated and have a rich biology. The remainder of the Sea is brackish, poor in oxygen, and in species. Thus, statistically, the more of the entrance that is included in its definition,

1008-647: A monk, and imprisoned him in a Kremlin monastery. A council of Seven Boyars ruled, until a zemsky sobor could be convened. Yet, with the arrival of Zolkiewski's army, and the false Dmitrii's army threatening Moscow, according to Dunning, "Up to five hundred courtiers, gentry, bureaucrats, and others traveled to Zolkiewski's camp to negotiate...The council of seven now quickly agreed to invite Wladyslaw to rule, and on August 17, about ten thousand Russians swore an oath of loyalty to Tsar Wladyslaw ." Yet, Sigismund's true intentions of conquering and personally ruling Russia became known after he arrested potential candidates to

1134-612: A normal winter, except sheltered bays and shallow lagoons such as the Curonian Lagoon . The ice reaches its maximum extent in February or March; typical ice thickness in the northernmost areas in the Bothnian Bay , the northern basin of the Gulf of Bothnia, is about 70 cm (28 in) for landfast sea ice. The thickness decreases farther south. Freezing begins in the northern extremities of

1260-472: A popular movement against the false Dmitrii started in Galich , and soon spread to Vologda and Kostroma , one in which Aleksander Józef Lisowski was unable to stop in the early part of 1609. In February, Tsar Vasilii was the target of an unsuccessful coup attempt by Mikhail Tatishchev, followed by another by Ivan Kriuk-Kolychev in the spring, both of whom were put to death. Then Prokofy Lyapunov declared himself

1386-457: A related hypothesis holds that the name originated from this Indo-European root via a Baltic language such as Lithuanian. Another explanation is that, while derived from the aforementioned root, the name of the sea is related to names for various forms of water and related substances in several European languages, that might have been originally associated with colors found in swamps (compare Proto-Slavic *bolto "swamp"). Yet another explanation

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1512-405: A rumor was soon started that a foreigner resembling the tsar had been killed, which soon led to another civil war in the name of the "true tsar" Dmitrii. On 19 May 1606, Shuiskii's co-conspirators met at his townhouse, planning his assumption of power, and then proceeded to Red Square where he was proclaimed tsar. According to Dunning, "The narrowness of the group supporting him, his reputation as

1638-509: A runaway defrocked monk. Vasilii was condemned to exile, but then allowed to return to Moscow, and reinstated in the boyar council. Yet, "As soon as Vasilii Shuiskii returned to Moscow in late 1605, he began secretly conspiring to assassinate Tsar Dmitrii…By spring 1606, Shuskii could count on the support of some individuals at court, in the church, and among the merchant elite." False Dmitry I quickly became unpopular, since many in Russia saw him as

1764-591: A significant part of Russia from the interventionists. Sweden's involvement in Russian affairs gave King Sigismund III Vasa of Poland a pretext to declare war on Russia. After the sudden death of Skopin-Shuisky, De la Gardie's troops were united with Shuisky's army, and the Poles defeated the combined Russo-Swedish force at the Battle of Klushino on 4 July [ O.S. 24 June] 1610. The Swedish mercenaries taking part in

1890-525: A slave law converting contract slaves into slaves for life. Russia experienced a famine in 1601–1603 after extremely poor harvests, with nighttime temperatures in the summer months often below freezing. Famine enveloped the country in 1602, followed by disease, claiming a third to two thirds of the population. Hunger riots, and the Khlopko rebellion of September 1603 also caused social instability. According to Dunning, "Russia's first civil war came about as

2016-785: A tool of the Poles . On 17 May 1606, ten days after his marriage, Dmitry was killed by armed mobs during an uprising in Moscow after he was ousted from the Kremlin . Many of his Polish advisors were also killed or imprisoned during the rebellion. Vasilii Shuiskii's conspirators included his brothers Dmitrii and Ivan, his nephew Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky , Vasily and Ivan Golitsyn, okolnichy Ivan Kriuk-Kolychev, okolnichy Mikhail Tatishchev, monks, priests, clerics, merchants, plus trusted dvoriane and deti boiarskie from Novgorod , Pskov , Smolensk , and Moscow . Several thousand Polish wedding guests were in Moscow for

2142-520: A truce with Sweden, allowing his army to advance upon Moscow, arriving there on 28 July 1612. Zarutski fled to Kolomna, with Marina, Ivan, and a few Cossacks. In January 1612, part of the Polish army mutinied because of unpaid wages and retreated from Russia towards the Commonwealth. The Second Volunteer Army joined the other anti-Polish Russian forces in Moscow, besieging the Polish garrison remaining in

2268-648: Is a reduction from the 25 incidents representing 1,110 kg (2,450 lb) of material in 2003. Until now, the U.S. Government refuses to disclose the exact coordinates of the wreck sites. Deteriorating bottles leak mustard gas and other substances, thus slowly poisoning a substantial part of the Baltic Sea. After 1945, the German population was expelled from all areas east of the Oder-Neisse line , making room for new Polish and Russian settlement. Poland gained most of

2394-417: Is about 20,000 km (4,800 cu mi). The periphery amounts to about 8,000 km (5,000 mi) of coastline. The Baltic Sea is one of the largest brackish inland seas by area, and occupies a basin (a Zungenbecken ) formed by glacial erosion during the last few ice ages . The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Baltic Sea as follows: The northern part of

2520-413: Is adapted to reproducing also with no ice in the sea. The sea ice also harbors several species of algae that live in the bottom and inside unfrozen brine pockets in the ice. Due to the often fluctuating winter temperatures between above and below freezing, the saltwater ice of the Baltic Sea can be treacherous and hazardous to walk on, in particular in comparison to the more stable fresh water-ice sheets in

2646-797: Is possible that Pliny refers to an island named Basilia ("the royal") in On the Ocean by Pytheas. Baltia also might be derived from "belt", and therein mean "near belt of sea, strait". Others have suggested that the name of the island originates from the Proto-Indo-European root *bʰel meaning "white, fair", which may echo the naming of seas after colours relating to the cardinal points (as per Black Sea and Red Sea ). This '*bʰel' root and basic meaning were retained in Lithuanian (as baltas ), Latvian (as balts ) and Slavic (as bely ). On this basis,

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2772-523: Is that the name originally meant "enclosed sea, bay" as opposed to open sea. In the Middle Ages the sea was known by a variety of names. The name Baltic Sea became dominant after 1600. Usage of Baltic and similar terms to denote the region east of the sea started only in the 19th century. The Baltic Sea was known in ancient Latin language sources as Mare Suebicum or even Mare Germanicum . Older native names in languages that used to be spoken on

2898-544: The All Saints' Flood of 1304 and other floods in the years 1320, 1449, 1625, 1694, 1784 and 1825. Little is known of their extent. From 1872, there exist regular and reliable records of water levels in the Baltic Sea. The highest was the flood of 1872 when the water was an average of 2.43 m (8 ft 0 in) above sea level at Warnemünde and a maximum of 2.83 m (9 ft 3 in) above sea level in Warnemünde. In

3024-451: The Battle of Klushino , both De la Gardie and Valuev switched sides, while the Russian army's retreat became a rout, and the Poles advanced to Viazma . Simultaneously, the false Dmitrii's army advanced to Kolomenskoe . Tsar Vasilii was now without an army, and Prokofy Lyapunov, Vasilii Golitsyn , and Filaret Romanov , along with others, plotted the overthrow of the unpopular tsar. On 17 July, they arrested Shuiskii, forced him to become

3150-483: The Bay of Kiel are parts of the Baltic Sea. Another usual border is the line between Falsterbo , Sweden, and Stevns Klint , Denmark, as this is the southern border of Øresund. It is also the border between the shallow southern Øresund (with a typical depth of 5–10 meters only) and notably deeper water. Drogden Sill (depth of 7 m (23 ft)) sets a limit to Øresund and Darss Sill (depth of 18 m (59 ft)), and

3276-745: The Black Sea and southern Russia. This Norse-dominated period is referred to as the Viking Age . Since the Viking Age , the Scandinavians have referred to the Baltic Sea as Austmarr ("Eastern Sea"). "Eastern Sea", appears in the Heimskringla and Eystra salt appears in Sörla þáttr . Saxo Grammaticus recorded in Gesta Danorum an older name, Gandvik , -vik being Old Norse for "bay", which implies that

3402-499: The Danish straits . According to the 18th-century natural historian William Derham , during the severe winters of 1703 and 1708, the ice cover reached as far as the Danish straits. Frequently, parts of the Gulf of Bothnia and the Gulf of Finland are frozen, in addition to coastal fringes in more southerly locations such as the Gulf of Riga. This description meant that the whole of the Baltic Sea

3528-606: The February Revolution in 1917. Tsar Feodor I was the second adult son of Ivan the Terrible , the first tsar of Russia . Feodor's elder brother, Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich , was the heir apparent ; Feodor was never considered a serious candidate for the Russian throne. However, Tsarevich Ivan was allegedly killed in anger by his father on 19 November 1581, making Feodor the new heir apparent. According to Chester Dunning, "Tsar Ivan knew perfectly well that Fedor could not rule on his own; before his own death in 1584, he set up

3654-655: The Jesuits soon took great interest in reports that Dmitrii was considering conversion to Catholicism. They dreamed, among other things, of converting all of Russia and then using the Russians against Sweden." By September 1604, Mniszech, as Dmitrii's commander-in-chief, had gathered about 2500 men. On October 1604, they crossed the Poland-Lithuania border into Russia. According to Dunning, "Dmitrii's invasion in October 1604 triggered

3780-688: The Netherlands , Denmark , and Scotland . The Polabian Slavs were gradually assimilated by the Germans. Denmark gradually gained control over most of the Baltic coast, until she lost much of her possessions after being defeated in the 1227 Battle of Bornhöved . In the 13th to 16th centuries, the strongest economic force in Northern Europe was the Hanseatic League , a federation of merchant cities around

3906-470: The Netherlands : their fleets needed the Baltic timber, tar, flax, and hemp. During the Crimean War , a joint British and French fleet attacked the Russian fortresses in the Baltic; the case is also known as the Åland War . They bombarded Sveaborg , which guards Helsinki ; and Kronstadt , which guards Saint Petersburg; and they destroyed Bomarsund in Åland . After the unification of Germany in 1871,

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4032-675: The Sambia Peninsula in Kaliningrad Oblast . The Bay of Pomerania lies north of the islands of Usedom/Uznam and Wolin , east of Rügen . Between Falster and the German coast lie the Bay of Mecklenburg and Bay of Lübeck . The westernmost part of the Baltic Sea is the Bay of Kiel . The three Danish straits , the Great Belt , the Little Belt and The Sound ( Öresund / Øresund ), connect

4158-584: The Stockholm area, southwestern Finland, and Estonia. The Western and Eastern Gotland basins form the major parts of the Central Baltic Sea or Baltic proper. The Bornholm Basin is the area east of Bornholm, and the shallower Arkona Basin extends from Bornholm to the Danish isles of Falster and Zealand . In the south, the Bay of Gdańsk lies east of the Hel Peninsula on the Polish coast and west of

4284-501: The Treaty of Stolbovo stripped Russia of its access to the Baltic Sea and awarded to Sweden the province of Ingria with the townships of Ivangorod , Jama , Koporye , and Nöteborg . Novgorod and Gdov were to be restored to Russia. As a result of the war, Russia was denied access to the Baltic Sea for about a century, despite its persistent efforts to reverse the situation. That led to

4410-459: The convent of Ivan's widow, Maria Nagaya , who accepted Dimitry as her son and confirmed his story. False Dimitry I was married per procura to Marina Mniszech on 8 May 1606, in exchange for promises of land grants and wealth. He converted to Catholicism, relying on Polish Jesuits and Polish nobles (who were prominent at his court) and on Mniszech's private armies . According to Dunning, "Tsar Dmitrii's nemesis, Prince Vasilii Shuiskii ,

4536-500: The siege of Smolensk . In late December 1609, the false Dmitrii fled for Kaluga . According to Dunning, "The 'tsar's' departure caused the entire Tushino camp to break up in disarray." On 4 February 1610, the Russian lords formally in the Tushino court signed a treaty with Sigismund III, hoping to end the civil war and restore order. According to Dunning, "Most Russian lords in the collapsing Tushino court came to believe that rebellion in

4662-970: The "white tsar", and led a revolt from the Riazan area. In the summer of 1609, the Crimean Tatars invaded Russia capturing slaves for their markets. In February 1609, Prince Skopin-Shuisky signed a treaty with Charles IX of Sweden 's representatives in Vyborg . In return for the use of 3000 mercenaries composed of Germans, English, Scots and French, Sweden would receive the Korela Fortress and surrounding towns and villages. On 10 May 1609, Prince Skopin-Shuisky led these mercenaries, along with 3000 Russian soldiers, from Novgorod for Aleksandrov , where he joined Fedor Sheremetev 's army advancing from Nizhnii Novgorod after retreating from Astrakhan . In September 1609, King Sigismund III Vasa of Poland invaded Russia and began

4788-404: The 12th century. The bordering countries have also traditionally exported lumber, wood tar , flax , hemp and furs by ship across the Baltic. Sweden had from early medieval times exported iron and silver mined there, while Poland had and still has extensive salt mines. Thus, the Baltic Sea has long been crossed by much merchant shipping. The lands on the Baltic's eastern shore were among

4914-663: The Atlantic with limited water exchange between the two, making it an inland sea . The Baltic Sea drains through the Danish straits into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund , Great Belt and Little Belt . It includes the Gulf of Bothnia (divided into the Bothnian Bay and the Bothnian Sea ), the Gulf of Finland , the Gulf of Riga and the Bay of Gdańsk . The " Baltic Proper " is bordered on its northern edge, at latitude 60°N, by Åland and

5040-457: The Baltic Sea and the North Sea . In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Poland , Denmark , and Sweden fought wars for Dominium maris baltici ("Lordship over the Baltic Sea"). Eventually, it was Sweden that virtually encompassed the Baltic Sea . In Sweden, the sea was then referred to as Mare Nostrum Balticum ("Our Baltic Sea"). The goal of Swedish warfare during the 17th century

5166-661: The Baltic Sea is known as the Gulf of Bothnia , of which the northernmost part is the Bay of Bothnia or Bothnian Bay . The more rounded southern basin of the gulf is called Bothnian Sea and immediately to the south of it lies the Sea of Åland . The Gulf of Finland connects the Baltic Sea with Saint Petersburg . The Gulf of Riga lies between the Latvian capital city of Riga and the Estonian island of Saaremaa . The Northern Baltic Sea lies between

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5292-622: The Baltic Sea was known as the Mare Suebicum or Mare Sarmaticum . Tacitus in his AD 98 Agricola and Germania described the Mare Suebicum, named for the Suebi tribe, during the spring months, as a brackish sea where the ice broke apart and chunks floated about. The Suebi eventually migrated southwest to temporarily reside in the Rhineland area of modern Germany, where their name survives in

5418-481: The Baltic Sea with the Kattegat and Skagerrak strait in the North Sea . The water temperature of the Baltic Sea varies significantly depending on exact location, season and depth. At the Bornholm Basin, which is located directly east of the island of the same name, the surface temperature typically falls to 0–5 °C (32–41 °F) during the peak of the winter and rises to 15–20 °C (59–68 °F) during

5544-585: The Baltic and North Seas is the Langelandsbælt (the southern part of the Great Belt strait near Langeland ) and the Drogden -Sill strait. The Drogden Sill is situated north of Køge Bugt and connects Dragør in the south of Copenhagen to Malmö ; it is used by the Øresund Bridge , including the Drogden Tunnel . By this definition, the Danish straits is part of the entrance, but the Bay of Mecklenburg and

5670-554: The Baltic states and Poland. The remaining non-NATO and non-EU shore areas are Russian: the Saint Petersburg area and the Kaliningrad Oblast exclave . Winter storms begin arriving in the region during October. These have caused numerous shipwrecks , and contributed to the extreme difficulties of rescuing passengers of the ferry M/S Estonia en route from Tallinn , Estonia, to Stockholm , Sweden, in September 1994, which claimed

5796-461: The Baltic states. In 1945, the Baltic Sea became a mass grave for retreating soldiers and refugees on torpedoed troop transports . The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff remains the worst maritime disaster in history, killing (very roughly) 9,000 people. In 2005, a Russian group of scientists found over five thousand airplane wrecks, sunken warships, and other material, mainly from World War II, on

5922-559: The Bothnian Bay and the Bothnian Sea were frozen with solid ice near the Baltic coast and dense floating ice far from it. In 2008, almost no ice formed except for a short period in March. During winter, fast ice , which is attached to the shoreline, develops first, rendering ports unusable without the services of icebreakers . Level ice , ice sludge , pancake ice , and rafter ice form in

6048-493: The Crimean Khanate . In 1571, Devlet I Giray , and his army ransacked its lands in the events known as Fire of Moscow . In 1591, Ğazı II Giray and his brother Fetih I Giray launched another raid  [ ru ] in Russia. After Tsar Ivan's death on 28 March 1584, Feodor was crowned as the tsar three days later. The pious Feodor took little interest in politics, ruling through Boris Godunov (his closest advisor,

6174-573: The De la Gardie Campaign surrendered and De la Gardie concluded an agreement with Polish hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski . The battle had serious consequences for Russia, as the tsar was deposed by the Seven Boyars and the Poles occupied the Moscow Kremlin , after which the Russian state began to fall into its constituent parts. De la Gardie then sought to take control of the Russian north–west in order to prevent

6300-592: The Gulf of Bothnia normally thaw in late April, with some ice ridges persisting until May in the eastern extremities of the Gulf of Finland. In the northernmost reaches of the Bothnian Bay, ice usually stays until late May; by early June it is practically always gone. However, in the famine year of 1867 remnants of ice were observed as late as 17 July near Uddskär . Even as far south as Øresund , remnants of ice have been observed in May on several occasions; near Taarbaek on 15 May 1942 and near Copenhagen on 11 May 1771. Drift ice

6426-494: The Gulf of Bothnia typically in the middle of November, reaching the open waters of the Bothnian Bay in early January. The Bothnian Sea , the basin south of Kvarken , freezes on average in late February. The Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Riga freeze typically in late January. In 2011, the Gulf of Finland was completely frozen on 15 February. The ice extent depends on whether the winter is mild, moderate, or severe. In severe winters ice can form around southern Sweden and even in

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6552-733: The Gulf of Bothnia, on its northeastern edge by the Gulf of Finland, on its eastern edge by the Gulf of Riga, and in the west by the Swedish part of the southern Scandinavian Peninsula. The Baltic Sea is connected by artificial waterways to the White Sea via the White Sea–Baltic Canal and to the German Bight of the North Sea via the Kiel Canal . The Helsinki Convention on the Protection of

6678-422: The Kremlin. Well-armed and organised, the Second Volunteer Army took Yaroslavl in March 1612 and set up a Russian provisional government supported by a number of cities. Minin and Pozharsky entered Moscow in August 1612 when they learned that a 9,000-strong Polish army under hetman Jan Karol Chodkiewicz was on the way to lift the siege. On 1 September, the Battle of Moscow began; Chodkiewicz's forces reached

6804-408: The Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area includes the Baltic Sea and the Kattegat , without calling Kattegat a part of the Baltic Sea, "For the purposes of this Convention the 'Baltic Sea Area' shall be the Baltic Sea and the Entrance to the Baltic Sea, bounded by the parallel of the Skaw in the Skagerrak at 57°44.43'N." Historically, the Kingdom of Denmark collected Sound Dues from ships at

6930-406: The Poles and Lithuanians took and burned Vologda killing and capturing many of its inhabitants; many other cities were also devastated or weakened. According to Dunning, "On October 26, Mstislavskii...led Ivan Romanov, Mikhail Romanov , and other sheepish aristocrats out of the Kremlin. The next day, October 27, the Polish garrison surrendered unconditionally, and national militia forces entered

7056-454: The Poles from extending their power and therefore threaten Sweden with an offensive on its Baltic territories. In July 1611 a Swedish expeditionary corps under Jacob De la Gardie captured Novgorod . The Novgorodians asked the Swedish king to install one of his sons ( Carl Filip or Gustavus Adolphus ) as their monarch. In the meantime, Gustavus Adolphus succeeded to the Swedish throne. The young king decided to press his brother's claim to

7182-419: The Poles occupying Smolensk in June. On 17 July 1611, Sweden's de la Gardie occupied Novgorod, and by early 1612, had annexed many border towns and fortresses, cutting Russia off from the Baltic Sea . Popular discontent had increased by early 1611, and many sought to end the Polish occupation. Polish and German mercenaries suppressed riots in Moscow from 19 to 21 March 1611, massacring 7,000 people and setting

7308-415: The Poles. Russia also renounced all territorial claims on the coast of the Baltic Sea coast. The Swedish commander Jacob De la Gardie joined his forces with the Russian commander Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky and marched from Novgorod towards Moscow in order to relieve the tsar. In May, the De la Gardie campaign began, where the Swedish corps fought as part of the army of Skopin-Shuisky, who managed to clear

7434-409: The Poles. The Time of Troubles united the Russian social classes around the Romanov tsars, laying the foundation for the later reforms of Peter the Great . Estimates of total deaths caused by the conflict range from 1 to 1.2 million, while some areas of Russia experienced population declines of over 50%. The cultivated area in Central Russia shrank by several times. Due to the shrinking population

7560-454: The Pozharsky-Minin liberation of Moscow, the struggle between Boris Godunov and False Dmitry I, and Ivan Susanin , a peasant who supposedly sacrificed himself to lead the Poles away from Mikhail Romanov: Russian and Polish artists have painted a number of works based on the period. Chester Dunning, in his 2001 book Russia's First Civil War: The Time of Troubles and the Founding of the Romanov Dynasty , wrote that modern Russia began in 1613 with

7686-414: The Romanov conspiracy of 1600, Feodor Romanov was forced to become a monk. "Boris Godunov has been called one of Russia's greatest rulers," according to Dunning, "The man responsible for the expansion of Russia at the end of the sixteenth century was Boris Godunov." Yet in 1592, he had effectively enserfed millions, burdened the populace with heavy taxes, harassed the free cossacks, and in 1597, introduced

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7812-405: The Romanovs to protect their families' interests." In 1586, after an anti-Godunov riot, "Aged Prince Ivan Shuisky was forced to become a monk and kept under heavy guard. Boris Godunov was now Tsar Fedor's sole regent and the most powerful man in Russia." In the middle of the 16th century, Russia suffered famines, pestilence and internal discord which were accompanied by Ottoman -backed raids by

7938-433: The Russian throne even after the Poles had been expelled from Moscow by a patriotic uprising in 1612 and Mikhail Romanov had been elected the new tsar. He was the first tsar of the House of Romanov . While the Swedish statesmen envisaged the creation of a Trans-Baltic dominion extending northwards to Archangelsk and eastwards to Vologda , De la Gardie and other Swedish soldiers, still holding Novgorod and Ingria , saw

8064-432: The Russian traitors who assisted them." Anti-Catholic and anti-Polish sentiment was aroused in Russia, which infuriated the pro-Polish boyars. Sweden continued the Polish–Swedish wars on the Baltic coast , ending their military alliance with Russia, and began the Ingrian War . By this time, Russia was a failed state ; the throne was vacant, the nobility quarreled among themselves, the Orthodox Patriarch Hermogenes

8190-431: The Russo-Polish War continued until the 1619 Truce of Deulino . Although Russia gained peace through treaties and preserved its independence, it was forced by Sweden and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to make substantial territorial concessions; most, however, were recovered during the next сentury. Ingria was ceded to the Swedes (who established Swedish Ingria ), and Severia and the city of Smolensk were retained by

8316-452: The Trinity-St. Sergius monastery . According to Dunning, "Russia was virtually inundated by a wave of opportunistic copy-cat tsarist pretenders during the later stages of the civil war." This included up to ten more pretenders, but the Tushino imposter brooked no rivals, hanging "Tsarevich Fedor Fedorovich" and "Tsarevich Ivan-Avgust," who claimed to be the son of Ivan the Terrible and his fourth wife Anna Koltsovskaia . In November 1608,

8442-570: The Tsar's army dammed the Upa , flooding Tula. Amongst those captured were Bolotnikov and Tsarevich Petr. Shakhovskoi and Yury Bezzubtsev also were captured, but escaped, joining the "second false Dmitrii." However, Tsarevich Petr was tortured and publicly hanged outside Moscow, while Bolotnikov was executed in Kargopol . On 29 October 1607, the "second false Dmitrii" was joined by a group of Polish lords, with 1800 mercenaries, followed by another group of Polish lords and mercenaries in November. According to Dunning, "Also joining him at about this time

8568-426: The Vikings correctly regarded it as an inlet of the sea. Another form of the name, "Grandvik", attested in at least one English translation of Gesta Danorum , is likely to be a misspelling. In addition to fish the sea also provides amber , especially from its southern shores within today's borders of Poland , Russia and Lithuania . First mentions of amber deposits on the South Coast of the Baltic Sea date back to

8694-433: The absence of Tsar Dmitri's arrival, "Petr could be tsar, since he was the true born son of Feodor Ivanovich and therefore the lawful heir to the realm." Tsarevich Petr was in reality Ilia Korovin, the illegitimate son of a Murom woman and the cobbler Ivan Korovin. In January 1607, Petr left Putivl for Tula with an army of 30,000. In May, Bolotnikov retreated to Tula following the siege of Kaluga. In June, Tsar Vasilii started

8820-420: The assassination plot, fleeing to Putivl , where he conspired with Grigory Shakhovskoy to initiate the uprising of Bolotnikov . According to Dunning, "Both before and during the siege of Moscow , Bolotnikov had written to Prince Shakhovskoi in Putvil urging him to find Tsar Dmitri and bring him to Moscow. Unable to comply, Shakhovskoi instead at some point made contact with the large group of cossacks on

8946-408: The border between the ocean and the land-locked Baltic Sea, in tandem: in the Øresund at Kronborg castle near Helsingør ; in the Great Belt at Nyborg ; and in the Little Belt at its narrowest part then Fredericia , after that stronghold was built. The narrowest part of Little Belt is the "Middelfart Sund" near Middelfart . Geographers widely agree that the preferred physical border between

9072-479: The bottom of the Gotland Basin, at depths greater than 225 m (738 ft), the temperature typically is 4–7 °C (39–45 °F). Generally, offshore locations, lower latitudes and islands maintain maritime climates , but adjacent to the water continental climates are common, especially on the Gulf of Finland . In the northern tributaries the climates transition from moderate continental to subarctic on

9198-753: The bottom of the sea. Since the end of World War II , various nations, including the Soviet Union , the United Kingdom and the United States have disposed of chemical weapons in the Baltic Sea, raising concerns of environmental contamination. Today, fishermen occasionally find some of these materials: the most recent available report from the Helsinki Commission notes that four small scale catches of chemical munitions representing approximately 105 kg (231 lb) of material were reported in 2005. This

9324-636: The boyars of organizing the pretender scheme. There is, in fact, quite a bit of evidence linking the pretender to the Romanov clan." Dimitrii had revealed his identity to the Ukrainian magnate Prince Adam Vishnevetsky , who helped him gain the support of the Zaporozhian and Don cossacks. Jerzy Mniszech housed Dmitrii, and helped secure several witnesses testifying him to be the Tsarevich Dmitrii. Dunning notes, "King Sigismund , Polish Catholic leaders, and

9450-452: The capital." The Zemsky Sobor elected Michael Romanov , the 16-year-old son of Patriarch Filaret of Moscow , tsar of Russia on 21 February 1613, and was crowned on 21 July. According to Dunning, "It is one of the great and tragic ironies of Russian history that the founder of the Romanov dynasty quickly put an end to the Troubles in part by crushing the very same patriotic cossacks who saved

9576-587: The city on fire. The Polish commander Gosiewski had ordered the outer city burned, giving time for the Poles to stop the Muscovite uprising, and attacks of the "national militia," when Prince Pozharskii was seriously wounded. According to Dunning, "In that bloody work they were actively assisted by Mikhail G. Saltykov, members of the council of seven (especially Fedor Mstislavsky , Fedor Sheremetev, and Ivan Romanov ), other nobles, and rich merchants who greatly feared their own countrymen and knew what fate awaited them if

9702-489: The city, using cavalry attacks in the open and new tactics such as a mobile tabor fort . After early successes, Chodkiewicz's forces were driven from Moscow by Russian-aligned Don Cossack reinforcements. On 3 September, he launched another attack which reached the walls of the Kremlin; Moscow's narrow streets halted the movement of his troops, however, and he ordered a retreat after a Russian counter-attack. On 22 September 1612,

9828-558: The collapse of the Communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe in the late 1980s. Finland and Sweden joined NATO in 2023 and 2024, respectively, making the Baltic Sea almost entirely surrounded by the alliance's members, leading some commentators to label the sea a ″NATO lake″. Such an arrangement has also existed for the European Union (EU) since May 2004 following the accession of

9954-462: The coronation, Boris was named koniushii boiarin (master of the house or equerry ) – a title that immediately identified him as the most powerful member of the boyar council. Prince Ivan Mstislavsky made a bid for power in 1585. He was stopped by the other regents and was forced to become a monk – which in Russia was an irreversible step. Out of this episode grew a tacit alliance between the Godunovs and

10080-450: The country and brought him to power." Romanov was connected by marriage with the Rurikids, and reportedly had been saved from his enemies by the heroic peasant Ivan Susanin . After he took power, Romanov ordered False Dmitry II's three-year-old son hanged and reportedly had Marina Mniszech strangled to death in prison. The Ingrian War lasted until the Treaty of Stolbovo in 1617, and

10206-554: The eastern coast. Russia became and remained a dominating power in the Baltic. Russia's Peter the Great saw the strategic importance of the Baltic and decided to found his new capital, Saint Petersburg , at the mouth of the Neva river at the east end of the Gulf of Finland . There was much trading not just within the Baltic region but also with the North Sea region, especially eastern England and

10332-401: The fall of 1611, Kuzma Minin , a butcher from Nizhny Novgorod , collected taxes from the populace, monasteries and crown peasant villages to fund a second militia ( Russian : Второе народное ополчение ). Minin recruited Prince Dmitry Pozharsky to lead them. Yaroslavl became the headquarters of the growing militia, and seat of the new provisional government. In June 1612, Pozharskii secured

10458-628: The false Dmitrii's camp in Kaluga. Tsar Vasilii made his brother Dmitry Shuisky his main commander following the death of Skopin-Shuisky. In June, aided by 10,000 mercenary troops supplied by King Karl, plus a spring levy, Dmitry Shuisky soon had an army of 30,000. Grigory Valuyev led an advance force of 6000 to Klushino, hoping to block Hetman Zolkiewski's advance. However, during the De la Gardie campaign , Dmitry Shuisky and Jacob De la Gardie failed to stop Zolkiewski's successful attack on Valuev's camp. During

10584-462: The first phase of Russia's first civil war – a massive rebellion of southwestern and southern frontier provinces, towns, garrisons, and cossacks that grew into a much wider conflict that toppled the Godunov dynasty." After Godunov's death in 1605, False Dmitry I made a triumphal entrance into Moscow and was crowned tsar on 21 July. He consolidated power by visiting the tomb of Ivan the Terrible and

10710-502: The founding of the Romanov dynasty. Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark , Estonia , Finland , Germany , Latvia , Lithuania , Poland , Russia , Sweden , and the North and Central European Plain . The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 10°E to 30°E longitude. It is a shelf sea and marginal sea of

10836-461: The four-month siege of Tula. In July 1607, a new impostor, False Dmitry II , came forward as the heir. According to Dunning, "At some point, the emissary from Tsarevich Petr and Bolotnikov, Ivan Zarutsky , stepped forward, also 'recognized' the tsar, and presented him with letters from the Tula leadership." On 11 October, False Dmitrii's army occupied Kozelsk . Tula had surrendered the day before, after

10962-517: The hated foreigners. In January 1611, Nizhni Novgorod informed Prokofy Liapunov that the town, on the advice of Pariarch Hermogen and the 'entire realm,' had resolved to raise forces to liberate Moscow." Though imprisoned, "...Hermogen still managed to continue stirring up the patriot cause by writing incendiary letters to Russian towns right up to his death by starvation in February 1612." The cousins King Karl and King Sigismund were acting like competing conquerors, with Sweden occupying Korela in March, and

11088-600: The healthier the Baltic appears; conversely, the more narrowly it is defined, the more endangered its biology appears. Tacitus called it the Suebic Sea, Latin: Mare Suebicum after the Germanic people of the Suebi , and Ptolemy Sarmatian Ocean after the Sarmatians , but the first to name it the Baltic Sea ( Medieval Latin : Mare Balticum ) was the eleventh-century German chronicler Adam of Bremen . The origin of

11214-562: The historic region known as Swabia . Jordanes called it the Germanic Sea in his work, the Getica . In the early Middle Ages , Norse (Scandinavian) merchants built a trade empire all around the Baltic. Later, the Norse fought for control of the Baltic against Wendish tribes dwelling on the southern shore. The Norse also used the rivers of Russia for trade routes, finding their way eventually to

11340-481: The ice further into the north, and much of the waters north of Gotland were again free of ice, which had then packed against the shores of southern Finland. The effects of the afore-mentioned high-pressure area did not reach the southern parts of the Baltic Sea, and thus the entire sea did not freeze over. However, floating ice was additionally observed near Świnoujście harbor in January 2010. In recent years before 2011,

11466-447: The increased importance of Arkhangelsk for its trading connections with Western Europe . Time of Troubles The Time of Troubles ( Russian : Смутное время , romanized :  Smutnoye vremya ), also known as Smuta (Russian: Смута , lit.   'troubles'), was a period of political crisis in Russia which began in 1598 with the death of Feodor I ,

11592-512: The insurgents were successful." The Polish occupation was now reduced to the Kremlin and Kitaigorod , which the Poles looted. In the spring of 1611, the national militia was led by Prokofi Liapunov, and the Cossack leaders Dmitrii Trubetskoi and Ivan Zarutskii. On 22 July 1611 however, Liapunov was killed in a dispute with the Cossacks. Zarutskii became the militia leader, and he effectively stopped

11718-443: The interior lakes. The Baltic Sea flows out through the Danish straits ; however, the flow is complex. A surface layer of brackish water discharges 940 km (230 cu mi) per year into the North Sea . Due to the difference in salinity , by salinity permeation principle, a sub-surface layer of more saline water moving in the opposite direction brings in 475 km (114 cu mi) per year. It mixes very slowly with

11844-589: The last in Europe to be converted to Christianity . This finally happened during the Northern Crusades : Finland in the twelfth century by Swedes, and what are now Estonia and Latvia in the early thirteenth century by Danes and Germans ( Livonian Brothers of the Sword ). The Teutonic Order gained control over parts of the southern and eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, where they set up their monastic state . Lithuania

11970-530: The last of the House of Rurik , and ended in 1613 with the accession of Michael I of the House of Romanov . It was a period of deep social crisis and lawlessness following the death of Feodor I, a weak and possibly intellectually disabled ruler who died without an heir. His death ended the Rurik dynasty, leading to a violent succession crisis with numerous usurpers and false Dmitrys (imposters) claiming

12096-485: The last very heavy floods the average water levels reached 1.88 m (6 ft 2 in) above sea level in 1904, 1.89 m (6 ft 2 in) in 1913, 1.73 m (5 ft 8 in) in January 1954, 1.68 m (5 ft 6 in) on 2–4 November 1995 and 1.65 m (5 ft 5 in) on 21 February 2002. An arm of the North Atlantic Ocean , the Baltic Sea is enclosed by Sweden and Denmark to

12222-528: The latter name is speculative and it was adopted into Slavic and Finnic languages spoken around the sea, very likely due to the role of Medieval Latin in cartography . It might be connected to the Germanic word belt , a name used for two of the Danish straits, the Belts , while others claim it to be directly derived from the source of the Germanic word, Latin balteus "belt". Adam of Bremen himself compared

12348-457: The lives of 852 people. Older, wood-based shipwrecks such as the Vasa tend to remain well-preserved, as the Baltic's cold and brackish water does not suit the shipworm . Storm surge floods are generally taken to occur when the water level is more than one metre above normal. In Warnemünde about 110 floods occurred from 1950 to 2000, an average of just over two per year. Historic flood events were

12474-459: The more open regions. The gleaming expanse of ice is similar to the Arctic , with wind-driven pack ice and ridges up to 15 m (49 ft). Offshore of the landfast ice, the ice remains very dynamic all year, and it is relatively easily moved around by winds and therefore forms pack ice , made up of large piles and ridges pushed against the landfast ice and shores. In spring, the Gulf of Finland and

12600-438: The name of 'Tsar Dmitrii' was now a lost cause. Not surprisingly, they chose to negotiate with Sigismund III. Patriarch Filaret, other members of the Romanov clan, boyar Mikhail G. Saltykov, and Mikhail Molchanov were ready to support Sigismund's son, Wladyslaw, as tsar." Included in the Polish service were Rozynski, and Ivan Zarutsky's cossacks. However, Prince Shakhovskoi and Jan-Piotr Sapieha brought cossacks and foreign troops to

12726-486: The northernmost coastlines. On the long-term average, the Baltic Sea is ice-covered at the annual maximum for about 45% of its surface area. The ice-covered area during such a typical winter includes the Gulf of Bothnia , the Gulf of Finland , the Gulf of Riga , the archipelago west of Estonia, the Stockholm archipelago , and the Archipelago Sea southwest of Finland. The remainder of the Baltic does not freeze during

12852-463: The peak of the summer, with an annual average of around 9–10 °C (48–50 °F). A similar pattern can be seen in the Gotland Basin , which is located between the island of Gotland and Latvia. In the deep of these basins the temperature variations are smaller. At the bottom of the Bornholm Basin, deeper than 80 m (260 ft), the temperature typically is 1–10 °C (34–50 °F), and at

12978-607: The peasants' wages improved and the process of enserfment which had intensified in the second half of the 16th century was rolled back to a degree. Unity Day was held annually on 4 November to commemorate the capitulation of the Polish garrison in the Kremlin until the rise of the Soviet Union , when it was replaced by celebrations of the October Revolution . It was reinstated by President Vladimir Putin in 2005. The Time of Troubles has inspired artists and playwrights in Russia and abroad. The three most popular subjects are

13104-599: The sea with a belt, stating that it is so named because it stretches through the land as a belt ( Balticus, eo quod in modum baltei longo tractu per Scithicas regiones tendatur usque in Greciam ). He might also have been influenced by the name of a legendary island mentioned in the Natural History of Pliny the Elder . Pliny mentions an island named Baltia (or Balcia ) with reference to accounts of Pytheas and Xenophon . It

13230-632: The shores of the sea or near it usually indicate the geographical location of the sea (in Germanic languages), or its size in relation to smaller gulfs (in Old Latvian), or tribes associated with it (in Old Russian the sea was known as the Varanghian Sea). In modern languages, it is known by the equivalents of "East Sea", "West Sea", or "Baltic Sea" in different languages: At the time of the Roman Empire ,

13356-424: The southern frontier who were headed by the self-styled 'Tsarevich Petr,' the mythical son of Tsar Fedor Ivanovich who had supposedly been hidden from the evil Boris Godunov as a child and had grown up in obscurity. Shakhovskoi knew perfectly well that no such person existed, but he nevertheless invited Petr and his cossacks to hurry to Putivl to help restore Tsar Dmitrii to the throne." Shakhovskoi told Petr, that in

13482-657: The southern shore . The Soviet Union gained another access to the Baltic with the Kaliningrad Oblast , that had been part of German-settled East Prussia . The Baltic states on the eastern shore were annexed by the Soviet Union. The Baltic then separated opposing military blocs: NATO and the Warsaw Pact . Neutral Sweden developed incident weapons to defend its territorial waters after the Swedish submarine incidents . This border status restricted trade and travel. It ended only after

13608-558: The summer offensive of Jan Karol Chodkiewicz . False Dmitry III first appeared in Novgorod, then in Ivangorod on 23 March 1611. On 4 December 1611, this third false Dmitry arrived in Pskov . On 2 March 1612, a large number of Cossacks declared for the new false Dmitry. Yet Zarutskii viewed this new Dmitry as a threat, and organized his capture on 20 May 1612, and eventually had him hanged. In

13734-403: The throne to the boyar council and entered a convent. The boyars convened a Zemsky Sobor to choose a new tsar. Godunov soon prevailed over his chief rival for the throne Feodor Romanov. Godunov was crowned in September 1598, and according to Dunning, "To help calm any discontent and to cement his claim to the throne, the new tsar had himself 'elected' after the fact by a sham zemskii sobor." After

13860-500: The throne, continued the siege of Smolensk, allowed Polish raids on Russian towns, and then established a Polish garrison composed of 800 mostly German mercenaries under the command of Alexander Gosiewski . On 11 December 1610, the false Dmitrii was killed in an act of revenge by Prince Petr Urusov, the captain of his bodyguard, while his widow Marina gave birth to his son "Tsarevich Ivan Dmitrievich". Muscovites then, according to Dunning, "...came to loathe Moscow's brutal foreign rulers and

13986-620: The title of tsar . Russia experienced the famine of 1601–1603 , which killed almost a third of the population, within three years of Feodor's death. Russia was also occupied by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Polish–Russian War and lost Smolensk . The Time of Troubles ended with the election of Michael Romanov as tsar by the Zemsky Sobor in 1613, establishing the Romanov dynasty, which ruled Russia until

14112-444: The tsar's guards. The tsar, fell and broke his leg while jumping out of a window, and was shot by Mylnikov. Shuiskii then attempted to justify the assassination by demonizing the tsar, claiming he was a sorcerer and skomorokh . His corpse lay on Red Square for three days, was denied a Christian burial, and was eventually burned. Legend states that his ashes were fired from a cannon in the direction from which he had arrived to Moscow. Yet

14238-496: The tsar's wedding to the Polish princess Marina Mniszech. On the morning of 17 May 1606, Vasily Golitsyn and Mikhail Tatishchev led the assault on the Kremlin Frolov gate while Vasilli Shuiskii sent heralds warning Muscovites that the Poles were attempting to assassinate the tsar. A terrible massacre followed with six or seven hours of rioting in which 420 Poles were killed, and several hundred Russians. This allowed assassins to kill

14364-592: The war as a reaction for their forces not receiving payment for their succour during the De la Gardie Campaign . In 1613, the Swedish troops advanced towards Tikhvin and laid siege to the city but were repelled. The Russian counteroffensive failed to regain Novgorod, however. The Russian tsar refused to commit his troops to battle, and the war lumbered on until 1614 when the Swedes captured Gdov . The following year, they laid siege to Pskov but Russian Generals Morozov and Buturlin held their own until 27 February 1617 when

14490-450: The west, Finland to the northeast, and the Baltic countries to the southeast. It is about 1,600 km (990 mi) long, an average of 193 km (120 mi) wide, and an average of 55 metres (180 ft) deep. The maximum depth is 459 m (1,506 ft) which is on the Swedish side of the center. The surface area is about 349,644 km (134,998 sq mi) and the volume

14616-688: The whole southern coast became German. World War I was partly fought in the Baltic Sea. After 1920 Poland was granted access to the Baltic Sea at the expense of Germany by the Polish Corridor and enlarged the port of Gdynia in rivalry with the port of the Free City of Danzig . After the Nazis' rise to power, Germany reclaimed the Memelland and after the outbreak of the Eastern Front (World War II) occupied

14742-554: Was the last European state to convert to Christianity . In the period between the 8th and 14th centuries, there was much piracy in the Baltic from the coasts of Pomerania and Prussia , and the Victual Brothers held Gotland . Starting in the 11th century, the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic were settled by migrants mainly from Germany , a movement called the Ostsiedlung ("east settling"). Other settlers were from

14868-414: Was also observed on 11 May 1799. The ice cover is the main habitat for two large mammals, the grey seal ( Halichoerus grypus ) and the Baltic ringed seal ( Pusa hispida botnica ), both of which feed underneath the ice and breed on its surface. Of these two seals, only the Baltic ringed seal suffers when there is not adequate ice in the Baltic Sea, as it feeds its young only while on ice. The grey seal

14994-563: Was another copy-cat pretender, 'Tsarevich Fedor Fedorovich,' who claimed to be Tsarevich Petr's younger brother. Foreign mercenaries, cossacks, and some of Bolotnikov's men from Tula, including his lieutenant Ivan Zarutsky, continued to join the army. Then in April 1608, the Ukrainian Prince Roman Rozynski joined with 4000 foreign mercenaries. In the spring, Dmitrii's army attacked Dmitrii Vasilii's men at Bolkhov , defeating him after

15120-461: Was covered with ice. Since 1720, the Baltic Sea has frozen over entirely 20 times, most recently in early 1987, which was the most severe winter in Scandinavia since 1720. The ice then covered 400,000 km (150,000 sq mi). During the winter of 2010–11, which was quite severe compared to those of the last decades, the maximum ice cover was 315,000 km (122,000 sq mi), which

15246-494: Was exploited by several usurpers, known as False Dmitrys , who claimed to be the tsarevich (and heir to the tsardom). False Dmitry I appeared in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1603, claiming to be the heir to the Russian throne. According to Dunning, "The source of the pretender scheme was a conspiracy among Russian lords. When Dmitrii finally revealed himself in Poland-Lithuania in 1603, Tsar Boris openly accused

15372-421: Was imprisoned, Catholic Poles occupied the Kremlin, Smolensk was still besieged, and Protestant Swedes occupied Novgorod . Tens of thousands died in battles and riots as bands of brigands swarmed, and Crimean Tatar raids depopulated and devastated Russia's southern borderlands. According to Dunning, "Almost overnight Pozharskii, Liapunov, and even Zarutskii gained enormous prestige and popularity for fighting

15498-399: Was one of the most senior and prestigious boyars whose family of Suzdal princes traced their ancestry back to Rurik …Tsar Dmitrii was a popular ruler while the conspirators represented only a relatively small group of disgruntled and ambitious individuals." Soon after Dmitrii's entry into Moscow , Vasilii, and his brothers Dmitrii and Ivan, spread the word that the tsar was Grishka Otrepyev,

15624-470: Was reached on 25 February 2011. The ice then extended from the north down to the northern tip of Gotland , with small ice-free areas on either side, and the east coast of the Baltic Sea was covered by an ice sheet about 25 to 100 km (16 to 62 mi) wide all the way to Gdańsk . This was brought about by a stagnant high-pressure area that lingered over central and northern Scandinavia from around 10 to 24 February. After this, strong southern winds pushed

15750-415: Was reported to be dead. On the basis of testimony from several eyewitnesses," an investigative commission, "concluded that Dmitrii had accidentally slit his own throat during an epileptic seizure that came on while he was playing with a knife." In January 1598, Fedor died. According to Dunning, "The tsar's death without an heir brought to an end the only ruling dynasty Moscow had ever known." Irina abdicated

15876-609: Was to make the Baltic Sea an all-Swedish sea ( Ett Svenskt innanhav ), something that was accomplished except the part between Riga in Latvia and Stettin in Pomerania. However, the Dutch dominated the Baltic trade in the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century, Russia and Prussia became the leading powers over the sea. Sweden's defeat in the Great Northern War brought Russia to

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