Yhdistymisen ainekset Itämerellä uuden ajan alussa
Keywords:
unionisuunnitelmat, Puola-Liettua, Ruotsi, Moskovan Venäjä, unioni, Itämeren alueAbstract
This article scrutinises unions and union plans in the late 16th-century Baltic Sea region between Poland-Lithuania and Sweden, and Poland-Lithuania and Muscovy. Comparisons are made between the Polish-Lithuanian union after 1569, the idea of a personal union drafted in the Swedish Kalmar statutes of 1587, and the later Polish-Lithuanian union proposal to Muscovy in 1600. The article focuses on both administration and cultural and religious conditions in the (potential) unions. Although the Baltic union projects presented in this article between Poland-Lithuania and Sweden, and Poland-Lithuania and Muscovy eventually failed, the idea of a union was not altogether impossible. For contemporaries, a union was a real alternative in early modern Europe. The Baltic union projects as such represent a possible (alternative) history of the region and deserve to be seen within the wider history of European unions.
