In Republic vs Autocracy Professor Andrzej Kaminski analyzes a pivotal period in the struggle between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russia for control of Ukraine and, ultimately, all of Eastern Europe. By 1697 the Commonwealth had lost control of East-Bank Ukraine and Kiev to Russia, and had seen the election of a Saxon king to the Polish Crown. Peter I had firmly established his rule and undertaken the Azov campaigns.

The Cossack Hetmanate was increasingly dominated by the Russian autocracy; the Treaty of Hadiach with the Commonwealth had failed. Russia was growing stronger in the international sphere. Poland-Lithuania had begun a decline accompanied by the ever-increasing absorption of its territories by its adversaries. Ukraine was split between two spheres of influence, with the Russian sphere growing larger after each of Russia's confrontations with the Commonwealth

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Concentrating on diplomatic relationships, the struggle for control over Ukraine, and the response to the Ottoman threat, Kaminski shows how political structures and forces within the Commonwealth and Russia contributed to the outcome of their rivalry. The focus on diplomatic relations centers on the residencies that Russia and the Commonwealth had in each other's capitals, seen through the detailed records of the respective departments and chancelleries responsible for foreign affairs.

Kaminski shows through these records how the two powers perceived each other and how they achieved their objectives. Republic vs Autocracy also offers ground-breaking analyses of the Solomon Affair and Russia's involvement in the election of August II to the Polish Crown, as well as new perspectives on the personal and political development of Tsar Peter I and Hetman Ivan Mazepa's relationship with Moscow and Warsaw

1. This study will be valuable to scholars and students of seventeenth-century Ukrainian, Russian, and Polish history and useful in graduate and undergraduate survey courses.