Russia's Baltic push shattered Livonia, then lost it in truces
From 1558 to 1583, the Livonian War turned Old Livonia—today's Estonia and Latvia—into a prize fought over by Russia, Poland–Lithuania, Sweden, and Denmark–Norway. Early Russian wins at Dorpat and Narva dissolved the Livonian Confederation; later truces stripped Moscow of those gains.
Mid-sixteenth-century Livonia was rich yet brittle: a decentralized, confessionally split Confederation of the Teutonic Order's Livonian branch, bishoprics, Riga, and privileged cities holding Landtags while the Archbishop of Riga and the Order's Landmeister rivaled each other. The Reformation had filtered in since the 1520s without a strong unified defense. Neighbors smelled opportunity. Ivan IV, after absorbing Novgorod (1478), Pskov (1510), Kazan (1552), and Astrakhan (1556), wanted ice-free Baltic access; shallow Ivangorod (1550) was not enough. He demanded about 6,000 marks tied to old Dorpat dues; when Livonian envoys failed to pay by 1557, talks collapsed.
Livonia's 1557 Treaty of Pozvol with Poland–Lithuania—after Sigismund II Augustus marched some 80,000 troops—violated a 1554 fifteen-year Russo-Livonian truce forbidding such an alliance. Ivan invaded on 22 January 1558. Dorpat fell in May, Narva in July; local peasants sometimes welcomed Russians as liberators from German lords. Sweden founded Swedish Estonia; Frederick II of Denmark–Norway bought Ösel–Wiek for his brother Magnus, who briefly fronted a Russian vassal "Kingdom of Livonia" until defecting in 1576. Russian pattern warfare—small campaigns, muskets, and artillery against wooden forts—took Fellin but not Riga, Reval, or Pernau; the knights' disaster at Ērģeme in August 1560 sealed the Order's collapse.
Stephen Báthory's accession in 1576 reversed momentum. Joint Swedish–Polish–Lithuanian success at Wenden and a grinding Siege of Pskov forced the 1582 Truce of Jam Zapolski, handing Russia's Livonian and Polotsk holdings to Poland–Lithuania. The 1583 Truce of Plussa left Sweden with most of Ingria, northern Livonia, and the Duchy of Estonia. A war begun to open a Baltic corridor ended with Moscow shut out of the prize it had first seized.
Source: Livonian War
