Great Northern War

And then he switched his attention to the North.

And that becomes, in effect, it becomes the Great Northern War of 1700 to 1721.

But that's what he's trying to do.

He had a reasonable belief that if only he could put together, as the word you used, I think, was a powerhouse, it would be a powerhouse.

So it's very competitive, very competitive.

And Augustus, I'm afraid, just politically just wasn't up to it.

And you mentioned the Great Northern War earlier.

For people who may not be familiar with this particular conflict or with the time that we're talking about, can you tell us a little bit about the Great Northern War, what it was about and how Augustus became involved in this?

Russians have tried to eradicate this part of Ukrainian history which sort of testifies to the culture's longevity in the 1930s by destroying the churches of the Baroque period.

There is a great and ongoing attack on one of the key state builders of that epoch, Ivan Mazepa, the hetman who is obviously revered in Ukraine as this patron of arts and one of the foundations of the Ukrainian statehood, and who is anathemized in Russia because of his siding with the Swedes in the Great Northern War.

Hmm.

Hmm.It, it's very interesting how the same figure is read so differently from two different geographies.

So he started to notice that Shungite had antiseptic properties, which caused him to establish Russia's first health spa, which was nicknamed the Water of Mars, at the source of the spring.

And then during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great ordered every Russian soldier to keep a piece of shungite in their pack to purify drinking water.

And this one practice was credited with preventing the widespread dysentery that crippled Swedish forces, which ultimately helped Russia secure a decisive victory at the Battle of Poltava.

Wow.

Human conflict provides an alternative explanation.

The genetic evidence connects subsequent outbreaks with the Thirty Years' War and the Great Northern War, when armies, refugees, and traders were using the same routes of transmission.

During the Siege of Tallinn in 1710, plague infected both troops and civilians.

The social impact of these recent outbreaks can be assessed in an earlier study covered by Ancient Origins about plague victims in Basel, which shows that young workers suffered the worst burden.

He also doesn't seem to realize that Russia will just keep falling back into its own territory and swallow him up

Which we, we should have learned from Great Northern War.

It's fucking-

Why has he not studied the campaign of Charles XII?

Peter's reign had changed much of this.

In the course of the Great Northern War, he had acquired access to the Baltic Sea at Sweden's expense and undertook the building of a great new capital on the shores of the Gulf of Finland, which he named St. Petersburg.

He also initiated a major reform program whereby he sought to modernize Russia, undertaking lengthy tours of Western and Central Europe in person to discover new ideas to bring back to Russia to implement.

While these measures had helped to modernize Russia and earned Peter the epithet of Peter the Great, he had not left behind a male heir, and instability followed his death in 1725.

on this day in 1708,

the Great Northern War, Charles XII of Sweden stops his march to conquer Moscow outside Smolensk, the turning point in that war.

We've talked about the Great Northern War before, haven't we, once or twice? On this day in history, I think we have.

He only got as far as Smolensk.

Have we, have we talked about it before?

His army wins a stunning victory at the Battle of Narva, defeating a Russian force several times its size.

But this one success will not be enough to end the Great Northern War.

This conflict will go on for more than two decades until Sweden and Russia finally sign a peace treaty on September 10th, 1721.

Hello, History Daily listeners.

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Today is September 10th, 1721, the end of the Great Northern War.

[instrumental music plays] It's 8:00 AM on June 20th, 1709, outside the city of Poltava in modern-day Ukraine, almost nine years after the Battle of Narva.