Ukrainian-Swedish Relations and Treaties of the XVII–XVIII Centuries

Abstract

It can be said that Sweden’s appeal to Ukraine during the Thirty Years War (1618–1648) and the formation of an imperial state was quite understandable: Ukraine was the enemy of Sweden’s enemies. But the peculiarities of political and economic development of Sweden and its allies caused their claims to the West Ukrainian and Belarus lands. This made it impossible to conclude a full-fledged political treaty. The like situation is with Ukrainian-Swedish relations in 1708–1709, when Sweden was a guarantor of possession of West Ukrainian lands by Polish-Lithuanian state. Ukrainian-Swedish treaties of the XVII – early XVIII centuries had only a military-tactical character and a short-lived action. Only a crisis after Swedish-Ukrainian forces defeat and prolonged living hand-by-hand in the Ottoman Empire (1709–1714) gradually brought royal Swedish protectorate as a form of military alliance to full-fledged recognition of Ukraine as the state and concluding treaty of political nature. Unfortunately, its implementation was very limited. In addition, the close encounter with foreign legal culture and other circumstances of UkrainianSwedish relations gave the impetus to reviewing the grounds of state and law of Ukraine and the emergence of the “Pacts and Resolutions of the Rights and Privileges of the Viysko Zaporozke”, known as the Constitution of Ukraine of 1710. We argue that this document together with confirmation and assecuration charters by Karl XII is not only a monument of Ukrainian constitutionalism, but also a treaty between Ukraine and its protector, the king of Sweden.