The armies of the two kings march…

The Livonian Confederation has by the late 1550s disintegrated over a series of internal disputes, while its Eastern neighbor Russia has grown stronger after annexing the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan in 1552 and 1556, respectively.

The conflict between Russia and the Western powers is exacerbated by Russia's isolation from sea trade.

Nor can the tsar hire qualified labor in Europe: Hans Schlitte, the agent of Tsar Ivan IV, had in 1547 employed craftsmen in Germany for work in Russia, but all these craftsmen had been arrested in Lübeck at the request of Livonia.

The German Hanseatic League has ignored the new Ivangorod port built in 1550 by Tsar Ivan on the eastern shore of the Narva River and continues to trade with the ports owned by Livonia.

Competition for the Baltic coast with Sweden had escalated into open war in 1554, interrupted only by a fragile truce in March 1557.

Ivan now demands that the Livonian Confederation pay forty thousand thalers for the Bishopric of Dorpat, based on a claim that the territory had once been owned by the Russian Novgorod Republic.

The federation turns to the Polish-Lithuanian union in the Treaty of Pozvol; Ivan regards this as casus belli.

The dispute ends with a Russian invasion in 1558.

Russian troops occupy Dorpat (Tartu) and ...

...Dorpat (Tartu), and other places.

Livonia is ceded to Poland under the truce of Jam Zapolski signed with Russia on January 15, 1582.

...Dorpat (Tartu).

Zamoyski, now sixty years old, has fallen ill, however, and Chodkiewicz takes command and lays siege to Dorpat.

A Jesuit grammar school had been established here in 1583.

In addition, a translators' seminary had been organized in Tartu and the city had received its red and white flag from the Polish king Stephen Bathory.

The current war has put an end to the activities of both the grammar school and the seminary.

Dorpat surrenders in April 1603.

The Academia Gustaviana in what is at this time the Swedish province of Livonia is the second university founded in the Swedish Empire, following Uppsala University (in Uppsala, Sweden proper) and preceding the Academy of Åbo (in Turku, Finland).

A precursor to the academy had been a Jesuit grammar school Gymnasium Dorpatense, founded by Stefan Batory (then king of Poland) in 1583 and existing to 1601, when Tartu (Dorpat) was under Polish rule.

The first students had entered April 1632.

The opening ceremony of Academia Dorpatensis (Academia Gustaviana) takes place on 15 October in the same year.

The academy in Tartu functions with Philosophy, Law, Theology and Medical Faculties enjoying the privileges of the University of Uppsala.

Today the national university of Estonia, the University of Tartu is the biggest and highest-ranked university in the nation.

A separate Russian detachment advances on Dorpat (Tartu) and ...

...raids Estonia.

Besieged Dorpat surrenders to Alexis on October 22, while ...