Truce of Vilna
peace treaty
The Truce of Vilna, Treaty of Wilno or Truce or Treaty of Niemieża was a treaty signed at Niemieża (modern Nemėžis) near Vilnius (also known as Vilna or Wilno) on 3 November 1656 between the Tsardom of Russia and Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, introducing a truce during the Russo-Polish War (1654–67) and an anti-Swedish alliance in the contemporaneous Second Northern War. In return for ceasing hostilities and fighting Sweden alongside Poland–Lithuania, the treaty promised tsar Alexis of Russia to succeed the Polish–Lithuanian throne as soon as John II Casimir Vasa would die. Thus began the Russo-Swedish War (1656–1658), which Russia would lose.
The Cossack Hetmanate under Bohdan Khmelnytsky was excluded from the negotiations, and the Truce did nothing to address the Muscovite occupation of Lithuania and the status of Ukraine. The Ukrainian Cossacks were enraged by this Russian betrayal of the 1654 Pereiaslav Agreement that promised Muscovite military support for the Cossacks against the Commonwealth. Without their knowledge or consent, the Russian tsar had suddenly made a separate peace deal with the Commonwealth, and violated his duty of military protection of the Cossacks. Khmelnytsky therefore ignored the Truce of Vilna, and subsequently supported the Transylvanian invasion of Poland on the Swedish side.
Developments
After a series of successes for the Russian forces, with an even more successful Swedish invasion of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Russian tsar decided that total defeat of the Commonwealth and a Swedish victory leading to a major strengthening of Sweden (a threat to Russia) would not be in the best interests of Russia.
The negotiations began in Autumn of 1655, between Field Hetman of Lithuania Wincenty Korwin Gosiewski and Russian commander Afanasy Ordin-Nashchokin, and led to a quick ceasefire along the Polish-Russian front, allowing the Commonwealth to concentrate on the Swedish incursion. In the light of its successes, the Commonwealth's stance in the negotiations intensified, and it has rejected Russian territorial demands; however, both Poland and Russia agreed to continue engaging Sweden.
“Truce of Vilna” enters the record as peace treaty. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Truce, Vilna and peace can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1502680. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1656, 1654, 1658 and 1655.
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This entry incorporates text from “Truce of Vilna” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.