Deluge (history)

Deluge (history)

The term Deluge (Polish: Роtор, Lithuanian: Tvanas, Cyrillic: Потоп) denotes a series of mid-17th century campaigns in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In a wider sense it applies to the period between the Khmelnytsky (Chmielnicki) Uprising of 1648 and the Truce of Andrusovo in 1667, thus comprising the Polish–Lithuanian theatres of the Russo-Polish and Second Northern Wars. In a stricter sense, the term refers to the Swedish invasion and occupation of the Commonwealth as a theater of the Second Northern War only (1655–1660); In Poland and Lithuania this period is called the Swedish Deluge (Lithuanian: Švedų tvanas, Polish: Potop szwedzki), and the term deluge (or potop in Polish) was popularized by Henryk Sienkiewicz, in his 1886 book The Deluge.

During the wars the Commonwealth lost an estimated one-third of its population as well as its status as a great power. According to Professor Andrzej Rottermund, manager of the Royal Castle in Warsaw, the destruction of Poland in the deluge was more extensive than the destruction of the country in World War II. As Rottermund claims, Swedish invaders robbed the Commonwealth of its most important riches, and most of the stolen items never returned to Poland. Warsaw, the capital of the Polish–Lithuanian Commowealth, was completely destroyed by the Swedes, and out of a prewar population of 20,000, only 2,000 remained in the city after the war.