Treaty of Nöteborg

The Treaty of Nöteborg, also known as the Treaty of Oreshek or the Treaty of Pähkinäsaari, was the peace treaty signed at Oreshek Fortress (Swedish: Nöteborg; Finnish: Pähkinälinna) on 12 August 1323. It was the first agreement between Sweden and the Novgorod Republic regulating their border on the Karelian Isthmus and parts of modern-day Finland. Three years later, Novgorod signed the Treaty of Novgorod with the Norwegians.

The border between Sweden and Russia did not change until the signing of the Treaty of Teusina in 1595, as all future Russian–Swedish treaties until then confirmed the border.

Name

At the time, the treaty had no distinguishing name. The chronicle of Novgorod reports the conclusion of "everlasting peace" with the Swedish king in 1323, and that the treaty was concluded "on the old terms" (po staroy poshline), although the available Russian text of the treaty contains no references to previous similar treaties. In the 15th and 16th century sources, it is referred to as the letter between Prince Yury and King Magnus.

Treaty of Nöteborg is a direct translation of the Swedish Nöteborgsfreden. The name is modern: prior to the late eighteenth century, Swedish historians did not know where the treaty had been concluded, as the location was recorded only in Russian chronicles. The Russian term for the treaty, directly translated into English, is the Peace of Orekhov or Peace of Oreshek (Russian: Ореховский мир, romanized: Orekhovsky mir).