Treaty of Oliva (1660)

Course of events

The warring parties were brought to the negotiating table by a French mediator, with the support of Queen Marie Louise Gonzaga¹. The venue of the congress long remained in dispute. The Poles wanted Braniewo, the Elector of Brandenburg wanted Lübeck or Frankfurt an der Oder, and the Swedes Elbląg. In the end the Crown chancellor proposed the monastery at Oliva¹. The Swedes took up residence in Sopot, where they arrived on 4 January 1660, and the Poles in the village of Striess. The talks were held in the Oliva monastery, in rooms with separate entrances, so that the delegations would not meet². The whole congress was directed by the French envoy Antoine de Lumbres³.

The Commonwealth was represented by, among others, the voivode (provincial governor) of Poznań Jan Leszczyński, the Grand Marshal and Field Hetman of the Crown Jerzy Lubomirski, the Grand Chancellor of the Crown Mikołaj Prażmowski and the Lithuanian chancellor Krzysztof Pac. The Swedish side was headed by Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie. Envoys of the Emperor, among them Franz von Lisola, and commissioners of the Elector of Brandenburg also took part in the congress⁴. In the course of the negotiations Charles X Gustav died in Gothenburg. The guardians of his son resolved to secure the country by a peace, even at some cost⁵.

The last days of the negotiations passed under the threat of a breakdown. On 2 May the delegates worked from four in the afternoon until sunrise, and on 3 May from nine in the morning until midnight. As the full instruments were not yet ready, Lumbres proposed signing a general article confirming all the articles already agreed. The parties signed this promulgation article on 3 May between eleven and twelve at night, and around midnight the secretaries exchanged the documents in the monastery corridor⁶.

The ratification was signed on 26 June 1660 by the deputies appointed by the Sejm and, on the same day, by the king. The Livonian deputies refused to sign, in protest against the surrender of the province. The instruments of ratification were exchanged in Gdańsk on 16 August⁷.

Forces and losses

Within an area of three miles (old miles) around the place of the talks all hostilities were to cease, but beyond it the war went on⁸.

Significance

The peace, as Kubala writes, closed wars that had begun sixty years before⁹. Sweden gave up Royal Prussia but kept Livonia, now „na wieczne czasy” ("for all time"): the whole land beyond the Dvina and the island of Ruhnu. The Commonwealth lost all rights to Estonia and Ösel. Only the south-eastern part of Livonia, with Daugavpils, Rēzekne, Ludza and Marienhausen, remained with Poland¹⁰. John II Casimir Vasa renounced his rights to the Swedish throne and undertook not to use the Swedish title or arms in letters to Sweden. The Elector retained the gains of the Treaty of Wehlau and Bromberg¹¹.

Kubala judged that for the time being the peace brought little to either side. The loss of Livonia was a painful blow to Poland, but an unavoidable one, because the Commonwealth needed peace in order to defend itself against Muscovy¹⁰. A breakdown of the talks threatened an alliance between the Swedes and Muscovy, which had already occupied the whole of Lithuania¹¹. The peace was concluded on terms fairly favourable to Sweden, in large part thanks to the efforts of Marie Louise⁹.