Truce of Andrusovo


The Truce of Andrusovo established a thirteen-and-a-half year truce, signed in 1667 between Tsardom of Russia and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which had fought the Russo-Polish War since 1654 over the territories of modern-day Ukraine and Belarus.
Afanasy Ordin-Nashchokin and Jerzy Chlebowicz signed the truce on 30 January/9 February 1667 in the village of Andrusovo not far from Smolensk. Representatives of the Cossack Hetmanate were not allowed.

Terms

The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Tsardom of Russia agreed on the following terms:
The transfer of Kyiv to the Russian tsardom had far-reaching consequences. Kyiv, situated in the Greek-orthodox part of the Lithuanian Grand Duchy before the Union of Lublin and in the Polish kingdom thereafter, was the seat of the orthodox metropolitan, who, despite being formally placed under the Roman pope since the Union of Brest, retained authority over the Orthodox population in Poland-Lithuania's eastern territories. Prior to Andrusovo, Kyiv had been an orthodox counterweight to the Moscow patriarchate, founded in 1589, and since the metropolitanship of Petro Mohyla hosted the Mohyla Academy, that opened orthodoxy to Western influence. The transfer of Kyiv to Russia came only days after patriarch Nikon, who reformed the rites within the Muscovite patriarchate, had won the upper hand over his adversary Avvakum, resulting in an intra-Russian schism between the Reformed Orthodoxy and the Old Believers.
Kyiv now supplied the Russian patriarch with an academy on whose scholars Nikon had relied already for his reforms. Nikon himself, having proposed to replace the Russian simfonia by a more theocratic model, was banned upon his success, effectively shifting the power balance to the Romanov tsars ruling Russia since the end of the Great Smuta. As the see of the metropolitan, Kyiv furthermore granted Moscow influence on the Orthodox population in Poland-Lithuania. "Protection" of the Orthodox population thus became a future argument or excuse for Romanov interference in Poland-Lithuania.

Perspectives

In Ukraine, the treaty is often viewed as leading to the partition of the Ukrainian Hetmanate state between its more powerful neighboring states.
From the Polish point of view the treaty is considered a significant mistake that tipped the balance of power in the region and replaced Poland as the dominant state by the emerging Russian Empire.