Polish–Russian War (1609–1618)
| Polish-Russian War | |||||||||
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| Part of the Time of Troubles and the Russo-Polish Wars | |||||||||
Poland–Lithuania and western Russia during the Polish–Russian War. The map shows Poland (cream), Lithuania (dark red), Russia (dark green), and Polish territorial gains or areas temporarily controlled by Poland (pink). Positions of military regiments and important battles are marked with crossed sabres. | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
The Polish–Russian War was a conflict fought between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Tsardom of Russia from 1609 to 1618.
Russia had been experiencing the Time of Troubles since the death of Tsar Feodor I in 1598, which caused political instability and a violent succession crisis upon the extinction of the Rurik dynasty; furthermore, a major famine ravaged the country from 1601 to 1603. Poland exploited Russia's civil wars when powerful members of the Polish szlachta began influencing Russian boyars and supporting successive pretenders to the title of tsar of Russia against the crowned tsars Boris Godunov (r. 1598–1605) and Vasili IV Shuysky (r. 1606–1610). From 1605, Polish nobles conducted a series of skirmishes until the death of False Dmitry I in 1606, and they invaded again in 1607 until Russia formed a military alliance with Sweden two years later. The King of Poland, Sigismund III Vasa, declared war on Russia in response in 1609, aiming to gain territorial concessions and to weaken Sweden's ally. Polish forces won many early victories such as the 1610 Battle of Klushino. In 1610, Polish units entered Moscow and Sweden withdrew from the military alliance with Russia, instead triggering the Ingrian War of 1610-1617 between Sweden and Russia.
Sigismund's son, Prince Władysław of Poland, was elected tsar of Russia by the Seven Boyars in September 1610, but Sigismund refused to allow his son to become the new tsar unless the Muscovites agreed to convert from Eastern Orthodoxy to Catholicism, and the pro-Polish boyars ended their support for the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 1611, Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky formed a new army to launch a popular revolt against the Polish occupation. The Poles captured Smolensk in June 1611, but began to retreat after they were ousted from Moscow in September 1612. In March 1613 the Russian Zemsky Sobor elected Michael Romanov, the son of Patriarch Filaret of Moscow, as tsar of Russia, thus inaugurating the Romanov dynasty and ending the Time of Troubles. With little military action between 1612 and 1617, the war finally ended in 1618 with the Truce of Deulino, which granted the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth certain territorial concessions but preserved Russia's independence.
The war was the first major sign of the rivalry and uneasy relations between Poland and Russia which would last for centuries. Its aftermath had a long-lasting impact on Russian society, fostering a negative stereotype of Poland among Russians and, most notably, giving rise to the Romanov dynasty which ruled Russia for three centuries until the February Revolution in 1917. It also left a noticeable mark on Russian culture, with renowned writers and composers portraying the war in works such as the play Boris Godunov by Alexander Pushkin (adapted into an opera by Modest Mussorgsky), other operas including A Life for the Tsar by Mikhail Glinka and Pan Voyevoda by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov as well as films such as Minin and Pozharsky (1939) and 1612 (2007).