Livonia, Swedish

Swedish Livonia is a dominion of the Swedish Empire from 1629 until 1721.

The territory, which constitutes the southern part of modern Estonia (including the island of Ösel ceded by Denmark after the Treaty of Brömsebro) and the northern part of modern Latvia (the Vidzeme region), representsthe conquest of the major part of the Polish-Lithuanian Duchy of Livonia during the 1600–1629 Polish-Swedish War.

Parts of Livonia and the city of Riga are under Swedish control as early as 1621 and the situation is formalized in the Truce of Altmark 1629, but the whole territory is not ceded formally until the Treaty of Oliva in 1660.

The minority part of the Wenden Voivodeship retained by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth is renamed the Inflanty Voivodeship ("Livonian Principality"), which today corresponds to the Latgale region of Latvia.

Riga is the second largest city in the Swedish Empire at this time.

Together with other Baltic Sea dominions, Livonia serves to secure the Swedish dominium maris baltici.

In contrast to Swedish Estonia, which had submitted to Swedish rule voluntarily in 1561 and where traditional local laws remainlargely untouched, the uniformity policy is applied in Swedish Livonia under Karl XI of Sweden: serfdom is abolished, peasants are offered education as well as military, administrative or ecclesiastical careers, and nobles have to transfer domains to the king in the Great Reduction.

The territory in turn is conquered by the Russian Empire during the Great Northern War and, following the Capitulation of Estonia and Livonia in 1710, forms the Governorate of Livonia.

Formally, it is ceded to Russia in the Treaty of Nystad in 1721, together with Swedish Estonia and Swedish Ingria.

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