It wouldn't really be hard for Sweden to keep a state like Brandenburg down, seeing as it was several orders of magnitude larger. My reasoning was that a strong Swedish Empire along the German Baltic coast prevents the consolidation of Prussia in the first place.
Your reasoning is understandable. The problem is that Sweden hardly had resources to be strong along the Baltic coast while doing something else: these territories had been too stretched.
Saxony was only in the war because Poland-Lithuania was, seeing as they were ruled by the same person. No Poland-Lithuania = no PU with Saxony and no Saxon involvement in (something analogous to) that war.
Not true. The war started in 1700 and the PLC entered it in 1701. It was at war with Sweden in 1701 - 04, then at war on the Swedish side in 1704 - 09 and then back at war with Sweden in 1709 - 19. The second return was after Swedish defeat at Poltava, which means that Russia managed to beat Sweden without Polish help.
ITTL, the Russians conquer Polish territories east of the Wilno-Lublin line while the Swedes take the western half of the Grand Duchy. Since we're dealing with a hypothetical, yes, Russia does have significant Polish territories ITTL. My reasoning for the Partition comes down to an agreement between Sweden and Russia to end their war for the time being to consolidate their gains in order to prevent the restitution of a Polish state. It's not like that's an unprecedented thing in history.
This could realistically happen but these Russian territories would be rather difficult for CXII to annex and even more difficult to held.
Obviously not. The exact constitution of a single royal family almost a century down the line are impossible to predict. For some reason you assume that the same person would be marrying two people, and that these marriages would occur simultaneously.
Your statement was not clear and I asked for the clarification.
This is splitting hairs. Their state certainly was an empire by this point, and the title Tsar is the exact cognate to German Kaiser and Latin Caesar.
No, this is actually a quite important issue. Whatever root of the title was, the western interpretation of the title “Tsar” was “Grand Duke”. It took a significantly increased prestige in the West and decades to get the Russian imperial title recognized throughout western Europe.
I get that its used for periodization in Russian history,
I’m afraid that what you got is not quite correct: it was a reflection of a seriously changed geographic situation. While the huge empty territories in Asia were not of a serious importance for well over century afterwards, conquest on the Baltics drastically changed position of the Russian state in Europe.
but its still based in Peter the Great's megalomania and ignorant occidentophilia.
It is neither here nor there. BTW, for the following couple centuries ignorant occidentophilia was a prevailing attitude throughout the “civilized world” so Peter was anything but unique.
Yes, you are technically correct.
Also, I was under the impression that the Ottomans sponsored a lot of raids into Russia's southern territories.
Ottomans did not have to “sponsor” them: slave trade was one of the major parts of the Khanate’s economy and small scale border raids had been happening on the annual base and were rather routine nuisance to which the other side usually reciprocated . The bigger and deeper ones had been relatively rare and they did not pursue any conquest, just looting.
The war of 1735-39 had been officially triggered by these raids and they stopped until 1756.
I don't see any reason why a civil war in Russia would be impossible.
Well, on that we have a serious difference of the opinions. Civil war between whom and whom? There was no challenge to the Romanov dynasty or, specifically, Peter’s rule. It could happen in a very seriously different TL but you have to define specifics for a meaningful discussion.
Empires that face military setbacks will always be more prone to internal conflict than ones that don't.
This is a general philosophy but how about specific facts? Ivan IV was defeated in the Livonian War, Tsar Michael was beaten by the Poles in Smolensk War. Tsar Alexey suffered a serious offset in his war with Sweden and Poland, during the GNW Russia suffered numerous defeats and then Peter was defeated at Prut. Alexander I suffered defeats in the 3rd and 4th coalitions. No civil wars or even revolts in any of these cases.
This is also not how reality works.
Actually, this was exactly as reality worked. Sigizmund was kicked out of Sweden, Queen Christina abdicated and in the enlightened XIX century Bernadotte had to declare himself a Protestant. Alt reality may work differently but you have to specify the details. For example by stipulating that in all involved countries population was not giving a damn about religion.
Religion doesn't prevent anyone from doing anything - it just leads to consequences when you disrespect its teachings. The King of Sweden could absolutely declare himself the Tsar of Russia if he wanted to (OTL he'd probably have been a laughing stock if he actually went and did that).
If he wanted, the King of Sweden could also declare himself an Emperor of China. The issue is not who can declare himself what but in being accepted by the subjects. Prince Wladislaw was welcomed to the Russian throne until it became clear that he is not going to convert. A Protestant will not be accepted by the Russians and we are getting back to the
undefined alt-reality.
So while Protestant and Orthodox clergy probably would have been furious, that doesn't automatically mean it would be impossible.
It was not an issue of a clergy but the whole population. The crowning ceremony would not be legitimate and the population would not accept that person as a ruler.
Conquering Russia was absolutely possible.
The last successful person was Batu and there was no Russian state, yet. Not that nobody tried since then.
Just like any other nation, once you have seized control of the institutions of government - military, judicial, administrative, handily focused in the capital - you can generally rule just as much of the country as the old regime did.
The key words “once you have seized”. Sweden did not have resources and Napoleon proved that even 500,000 troops were not adequate for performing the task.
Its not like the Swedes need to march their army from Nyen to the Bering Straight to conquer Russia.
They would not be able to march it even to Moscow, not to mention Nizhny Novgorod and other places. The Poles occupied Moscow when Tsardom was much weaker and then what?
You seem to have a prescriptive way of thinking about history.
Look, you can argue with the facts by saying that your unwritten TL will change all of them. It is fine by me but if you start making the personal remarks, I’ll report you. As you notice, I did not write a single word about your view of a history so please keep your definitions to yourself and be polite.
What I wrote so far is based strictly on the known facts. Outcomes of the GNW had been discussed numerous times and so far, with the realistic changes, outcome was pretty much the same in these scenarios. If you want to write your own TL, it is entirely up to you but you’d need to clarify quite a few points, which so far you did not.
