Deluge (history)

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The Deluge was a series of mid-17th-century military campaigns in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In a stricter sense, the term refers to the Swedish invasion and occupation of the Commonwealth as a theatre of the Northern War of 1655–1660 only; in Poland and Lithuania this period is called the Swedish Deluge or less commonly the Russo–Swedish Deluge (Polish: Potop szwedzko-rosyjski) due to the simultaneous Russo-Polish War. In a wider sense, it applies to the period between the Khmelnytsky Uprising of 1648 and the Truce of Andrusovo in 1667, comprising the Polish theatres of the Russo-Polish and Second Northern Wars. The term "deluge" (potop in Polish) was popularized by Henryk Sienkiewicz in his novel The Deluge (1886). During the wars, the Commonwealth lost approximately one third of its population as well as its status as a great power due to invasions by Sweden and Russia. According to Andrzej Rottermund, manager of the Royal Castle in Warsaw, the destruction of Poland in the Deluge...

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