AHC: Early Muscovite absorption of Ukraine & Belarus

raharris1973

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In the middle 1650s under Tsar Alexei, Muscovite forces, allied with Cossacks in many places, occupied the eastern two-thirds or so of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, in a period the Poles called the "potop" or "deluge". Despite being simultaneously ravaged and occupied by the Swedes in the west, Poland-Lithuania ended up recovering most of its territory, and at the Treaty of Andrusovo Muscovy only ended up keeping the left bank of the Dnepr and Kiev.

So, how could Muscovy manage to hold onto the territory it occupied in OTL (see map) in perpetuity throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? What effects would this have had on Muscovy, European and Eurasian power politics and ethno-national and religious evolution & demography within this precociously expanded Russian state?

I see assets and liabilities for Muscovy in these acquisitions -

The assets are greater proximity to the markets of central and southeast Europe, greater population, and vast new cultivatable lands across the entire Ukraine. The could arguably lead to greater continent-wide influence of Russia even from before the OTL reigns of Peter the Great, Elizabeth and Catherine. Over the centuries, the main ethnic identity throughout the entire Ukraine and Belarus may end up as Great Russian as in Moscow and the Volga, if all these territories go through more of the early modern age under a single sovereignty.

On the downside - Muscovy has more Cossacks and a wider area to pacify. It is also going to be taking direct punches and raids from the Ottomans along its southern borders that OTL Poland-Lithuania was a buffer against.

Additionally, whether under Polish, Swedish or Habsburg leadership, the Muscovite state will more likely have to contend with a more compact and cohesive western Poland, with revanchist territorial objectives against the far western reaches of Russia including Lvov and Vilnius.

Thoughts?

765px-Rzeczpospolita_Potop.png
 
I'm not expert on the era but generally peace treaties aren't based on the maximum extent of occupation. Looking at that map I suspect places like Lvov which are close to the border would be given back.
 

raharris1973

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On the one hand, complete partition may have been..

..possible, because for a period of time the Swedes were occupying nearly all of Poland that Russia was not occupying. Only a sliver of southern Galicia remained free of foreign occupation.

On the other hand, supposing I go with Thoresby's suggestion, and the westernmost outposts like Lwow and Vilna are given back to a rump Poland, the result could still be a dramatic divergence from OTL history, with Muscovy obtaining in the 1650s or 1660s borders it did not obtain until OTL's 1793 with the 2nd partition of Poland, which were also similar to the 1938 Soviet-Polish border. 1793 Shown in the attached.

With its territorial expansion accelerated by 130 years, the 1700s can be changed quite a bit. Russian military and diplomatic effectiveness was at a peak in that century. Technological and internal political conditions were conducive to Russian success. The latter half of the 1700s might see the Russians directing greater efforts, with a degree of success, against the Ottoman Balkans. With its border further west, Russia could power project more strongly into Germany, Italy and the Low Countries. The late 1700s could see it taking part in a partition of Prussia, or Austria.

Internally, I don't know if the grip of Uniate-ism and the spread of Polish Catholic and Jewish culture was as widespread in Belarus and central Ukraine in the 1600s as it was by the 1790s. It might be easier to absorb those territories into the Russian cultural mainstream if they had come under Moscow's sovereignty earlier.

history-of-poland1.gif
 
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