A.A.Selin

1). Both Sweden and Russian states just before in 16th c. had overcome the stage of state-plotting including the plotting of state ideology. For Sweden it was Reformation held by king-emancipator Gustav Vasa; for Russia it was a number of religious reforms from late 15 and early 16th cc. that had their results in the Stoglav - the actes of Holy Assembly in 1551.

2). In the conditions of practically total disintegration of Moscow State near 1611 it was organic to the Novgorodians to turn their face to the closest neighbors besides they had often been enemies.

2. In 1611 Novgorodins and Sweden Colonel-General De la Gardie held a political dialogue. The agreement on peace and order even though for the territory of Novgorod Land corresponded to the wills of wide levels of Novgorod society, first of all - to the wills of the most socially active population strata - gentry (dvoryane and deti bojarskie). The coming of Swedes in 1611 everybody in Novgorod perceived as the returning and plotting of strong power.

3. According to the number of records in June 1611 the negotiations were held by De la Gardie and Russian War chief Buturlin. I succeeded in finding the concrete place of the meeting and in revealing of some traits in its character. The meeting was held in 10 Sweden miles (40 km) to the North West from Novgorod near Klimentovsky pogost in Tesovo. Not only Buturlin took part in the meeting from the Novgorod side, but also a number of representatives of Novgorod gentry. It is important that in later remembrances of that meeting those gentry called it “Circle in Tesovo” - “Tesovsky krug” like a traditional cossack krug - meeting elaborated the most important desigions.

4. The documents of 1611-1617 tell us about the construction of Novgorod-Sweden political alliance such a way: the order was supported by local Sweden garrisons led by the officers and the supplying system of these garrisons (with food, etc.) was prepared by Novgorod gentry. It was a part of the conditions achieved in Tesovo and it was followed correctly. Just the Novgorod gentlemen that were ordered to local ostrozhki - small wooden fortresses erected in 1611-1613 all over the territory of Novgorod Land - had to communicate with Swedes more often than anybody else in Novgorod.

5. The alliance fall to crisis when, from one hand, the Swedes felt that they could not held Novgorod and the Russian North West by the small garrisons and numbered the troops that Novgorodians were to supply with food, and, from the other hand, the Novgorodians understood that nor Sweden prince Carl Philipp would not take the Orthodoxial custom neither in Moscow anybody agree with the elections of that prince to the Moscow state that was proposed by P. Lyapunov in 1611 and been supported by Novgorodians. All of thus was followed with the crisis of the troops’ supplying and the violence in answer. And the Novgorod gentlemen lost themselves: they had broken their connections with Moscow and in the same time they had not seen any support from Swedes, who, from 1614, had only tried to take some territories from Novgorod (or including Novgorod from Moscow State).

6. Nowgorod-Sweden alliance was a real alternative to the way that Russian society followed after 1613-1617. There were significant changes in Novgorod society everyday life in 1611-1617. The reason for those changes is to be looked for not only in the inside processes of Novgorod communities but also in the everyday contacts with Swedes. Firstly, the self-respectness of Novgorod gentry risen greatly. They stopped to name themselves with diminutive names (that was officially abrogated in Muscovia only in the beginning of 18th c. in the reign of Peter the Great). The greatly more number of persons received a right for a valid adress with the patronymic name (with -vich). Such a practice appeared then in Russian everyday life only in early 19th c. But in the same time just in 1611-1617 we meet a great power concentrated in hands of Novgorod bureaucracy, that we have not ever met before in Russian history, just also before 19th c. The officials, the bureaucrats of that time in Novgorod seems to be the most well-to-do social group.

7. The result of Novgorod-Sweden alliance was the Stolbovo peace treaty of 1617, according to which Novgorod and Ladoga returned under the rule of Muscovite state. I should like to stress that the process of Novgorod transmissing from Sweden to Moscow in 1617 was politically correct and thought over. Moscow declared the political amnesty to everybody who was on the state service in 1611-1617 and also t everybody who fought against Muscovits in 1614-1616. The declaring of social peace in Novgorod was a really wise deal of Muscovite rulers.