Treaty of Nystad

The Treaty of Nystad (Ништадтский мир, Uudenkaupungin rauha, Freden i Nystad) was the last peace treaty of the Great Northern War. It was concluded between the Tsardom of Russia and the Swedish Empire on 10 September 1721 in the then Swedish town of Nystad (Uusikaupunki). Sweden had settled with the other parties in Stockholm and Frederiksborg.

During the war, Peter I of Russia had occupied all Swedish possessions on the eastern Baltic coast: Swedish Ingria, where the soon to be new Russian capital of St. Petersburg was begun in 1703, Swedish Estonia and Swedish Livonia, which had capitulated in 1710, and Finland.

In Nystad, Frederick I of Sweden formally recognized the transfer of Estonia, Livonia, Ingria, and Southeast Finland (Kexholmslän and part of Karelia) to Russia in exchange for two million silver thaler, while the bulk of Finland was returned to Sweden.

The treaty enshrined the rights of the Baltic-German nobility within Estonia and Livonia to maintain their financial system, existing customs border, self-government, Lutheran religion, and the German language; this special position in the Russian Empire was reconfirmed by all Russian Tsars from Peter the Great to Alexander II.

Nystad manifested the decisive shift in the European balance of power which the war had brought about: the Swedish imperial era was over; Sweden entered the Age of Liberty, while Russia had emerged as a new empire.