Ukraine UKR-SWE Union FDC

Ukraine FDC
Name: Ukrainian - Swedish Military and Political Unions of XVII - XVIII Centuries
Date of Issue: 01 October 2008

Alliance with Bohdan Khmelnytsky
An alliance between Sweden and Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky against Poland was negotiated several times between 1651 and 1657. After the 1656 peace in Vilnius between Muscovy and Poland Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky was furiated and wrote to the tsar Alexis I of Russia: The Swedes are an honest people; when they pledge friendship and alliance, they honour their word. However, the Tsar, in establishing an armistice with the Poles and in wishing to return us into their hands, has behaved most heartlessly with us. Even after the Treaty of Pereyaslav in 1654 Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky continued to negotiate with the Swedes and in late 1655 his ambassador made proposals to the Swedish king Charles X Gustav to accept Ukraine as a Swedish vassal state and promised him the faithful service of the entire Zaporozhian Host.

Finally an agreement was signed between Sweden and three Ukrainian commanders (Ivan Bohun, the leader of the Ukrainian protestants Jerzy Niemirycz and Ivan Kovalyvsky) on October 6, 1657 in Korsun where Sweden acknowledged the Ukrainian borders all the way to Wisła in the west and Prussia in the north. But by then Bohdan Khmelnytsky had died one month earlier and after the Swedes had left Poland for military campaigns in Denmark the proposed alliance died.

Alliance with Ivan Mazepa
During the Great Northern War Sweden and Hetman Ivan Mazepa formed an alliance in 1708 against Peter I of Russia. But after the defeat at Poltava on June 28, 1709 parts of the Swedish army under king Charles XII and Hetman Ivan Mazepa together with his loyal cossacks had to flee to Bender in Ottoman Turkey where Mazepa soon died. Pylyp Orlyk was then chosen as a Hetman in exile by the cossacks and the Swedish king Charles XII. While in Bender Pylyp Orlyk wrote one of the first state constitutions in Europe. This constitutions was confirmed by Charles XII and it also names him as the protector of Ukraine. More...

Comment: If you have seen the fullsheet of this set, You will realize the background of this set more clearly, because there are 4 coupons in this fullsheet and depicts 4 important person and text. oh, but you should know Ukrainian at first, lol!