Peter the Great and the Russian Military Campaigns During the Final Years of the Great Northern War, 1719-1721

The study of Peter the Great's reign has occupied a great and often tumultuous place in the fields of Russian and European History. Countless biographies and monographs have been written on the Petrine period, yet much of this work by Western historians has neglected the Russian military campaigns against Sweden during the final years of the Great Northern War (1700-1721). The Russian Military campaigns along Sweden's coast during the years 1719-1721 and their consequences have far too often been relegated to a few brief sentences or explanatory footnotes. Therefore, this study examines the vital impact that the Russian military campaigns of 1719-1721 had in ending the Great Northern War, and Peter the Great's crucial involvement in directing them. The diplomatic and financial role of Great Britain in assisting Sweden in exchange for the territories ceded to George I's Electorate of Hanover, also forms an essential part of this study. The purpose of this work is to provide a more subjective account of these critical campaigns and their consequences, based on both Russian and Western sources.