…Polotsk, …

The Crimean Khanate, formed from Golden Horde territory conquered after the Mongol invasion, will be of the strongest powers in Eastern Europe until the eighteenth century; in 1571 it even captures and devastates Moscow.

The borderlands suffer annual Tatar invasions.

From the beginning of the sixteenth century until the end of the seventeenth century, Crimean Tatar slave raiding bands export about two million slaves from Russia and Ukraine.

According to Orest Subtelny, "from 1450 to 1586, eighty-six Tatar raids were recorded, and from 1600 to 1647, seventy."

Muscovy continues its territorial growth through the seventeenth century.

In the southwest, it acquires eastern Ukraine, which had been under Polish rule.

The Ukrainian Cossacks, warriors organized in military formations, live in the frontier areas bordering Poland, the Tatar lands, and Muscovy.

Although they had served in the Polish army as mercenaries, the Ukrainian Cossacks remain fiercely independent and stage a number of uprisings against the Poles.

In 1648 most of Ukrainian society joins the Cossacks in a revolt because of the political, social, religious, and ethnic oppression suffered under Polish rule.

After the Ukrainians had thrown off Polish rule, they need military help to maintain their position.

In 1654 the Ukrainian leader, Bogdan Khmel'nitskiy, offers to place Ukraine under the protection of the Muscovite tsar, Aleksey I, rather than under the Polish king.

Aleksey's acceptance of this offer, which is ratified in the Treaty of Pereyaslavl', leads to a protracted war between Poland and Muscovy.

The Treaty of Andrusovo, which ends the war in 1667, splits Ukraine along the Dnepr River, reuniting the western sector with Poland and leaving the eastern sector self-governing under the suzerainty of the tsar.

Poland-Lithuania escapes the ravages of the Thirty Years' War, which ends in 1648, but the ensuing two decades subject the country to one of its severest trials.

This colorful but ruinous interval, the stuff of legend and the popular historical novels of Nobel laureate Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846-1916), become known as the potop, or deluge, for the magnitude of its hardships.

The emergency begins with an uprising of Ukrainian Cossacks that persists in spite of Warsaw's efforts to subdue it by force.

After the rebels win the intervention of Muscovy on their behalf, Tsar Alexis conquers most of the eastern half of the country by 1655.

Taking advantage of Poland's preoccupation, Charles X of Sweden rapidly overruns much of the remaining territory of the commonwealth in 1655.

Pushed to the brink of dissolution, Poland-Lithuania rallies to recover most of its losses to the Swedes.

Swedish brutality raises widespread revolts against Charles, whom the Polish nobles have recognized as their ruler in the meantime.

Under Stefan Czarniecki, the Poles and Lithuanians drive the Swedes from their territory by 1657.

Further complicated by noble dissension and wars with the Ottoman Turks, the thirteen-year struggle over control of Ukraine ends in the Truce of Andrusovo in 1667.

Although Russia had been defeated by a new Polish-Ukrainian alliance in 1662, Russia gains eastern Ukraine in the peace treaty.

The Union of Lublin establishes the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569 and much Ukrainian territory is transferred from Lithuania to the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, becoming Polish territory de jure.

Under the demographic, cultural and political pressure of Polonization, which had begun in the late fourteenth century, many landed gentry of Polish Ruthenia (another name for the land of Rus) convert to Catholicism and become indistinguishable from the Polish nobility.

Deprived of native protectors among Rus nobility, the commoners (peasants and townspeople) begin turning for protection to the emerging Zaporozhian Cossacks, who by the seventeenth century become devoutly Orthodox.

The Cossacks do not shy from taking up arms against those they perceive as enemies, including the Polish state and its local representatives.

Báthory now turns to face Poland's major enemy, Muscovy, which is attempting to seize an outlet on the Baltic Sea. The king secures a truce with Turkey and strengthens the Polish army by enrolling Cossacks on a regular basis.

The Polish forces, reorganized under his leadership, are able to carry the Livonian War onto Russian territory in 1579 while the Swedes recapture parts of Livonia.

The Ottoman domains meanwhile suffer attacks from Dnieper Cossacks by land and sea.

Under Murad, nepotism, heavy taxes necessitated by the long wars, and inflation, aggravated by the influx of cheap South American silver from Spain, all have contributed to the decline of the major Ottoman administrative institutions.

The timar (fief) system suffers dislocation when the peasants, because of high taxes, are forced to leave their lands.

Because of a policy of indiscriminate recruitment into the Janissary corps, what had been a highly effective elite force has degenerated into a body of ruffians that threaten the urban and rural populations.

The Moldavian Prince Ieremia Movilă is an old enemy of Michael the Brave, Prince of Wallachia and of Transylvania, having incited the late Andrew Báthory, the former Prince of Transylvania, to send Michael the ultimatum demanding his abdication in 1598.

His brother, Simion Movilă, has claimed the Wallachian throne for himself and has used the title of Voivode since 1595.

Aware of the threat the Movilas represent, Michael had created the Banat of Buzău and Brăila in July 1598 and the new Ban has been charged with keeping an alert eye on Moldavian, Tatar and Cossack moves, although Michael has been planning a Moldavian campaign for several years.

Michael, meeting with Polish envoys in Braşov on February 28, 1600, is willing to recognize the Polish King as his sovereign in exchange for the crown of Moldavia and the recognition of his male heirs' hereditary right over the three principalities, Transylvania, Moldavia and Wallachia.

This does not significantly delay his attack, however.

Michael's troops enter Moldavia on April 14, 1600, by multiple routes, the Prince himself leading the main thrust to the river Trotuş.

Michael reaches the capital of Suceava on May 6.

The garrison surrenders the citadel the next day and Michael's forces catch up with the fleeing Ieremia Movilă, who is only saved from being captured by the sacrifice of his rearguard.

Movilă takes refuge in the castle of Khotyn together with his family, a handful of faithful boyars and the former Transylvanian Prince, Sigismund Báthory.

The Moldavian soldiers in the castle desert, leaving a small Polish contingent as sole defenders.