Stolbovo, Treaty of(1617), peace settlement concluded between Sweden and Russia ending Sweden’s intervention in Russia’s internal political affairs and blocking Russia from the Baltic Sea. In 1610 Muscovite leaders, faced with a succession crisis, a war with Poland, and peasant uprisings (Time of Troubles, 1606–13), offered the Russian throne to Władysław, the son of the Polish king Sigismund III. This action provoked Sweden, then at war with Poland, to declare war on Russia and claim the Russian throne for the Swedish prince Philip.

Hoping to recover territory along the Gulf of Finland that they had lost to Russia during an earlier Russo-Swedish war (1590–95; Treaty of Täysinä), the Swedes invaded northern Russia (autumn 1610) and in July 1611 captured Novgorod. When the Russian domestic crises had been brought under control, the forces of the new tsar Michael Romanov actively resumed the war against the Swedes in northern Russia, expelling them from the Novgorod region. But the Swedes besieged Pskov, and peace was restored only after the mediation of Holland and England brought about the Treaty of Stolbovo.

The provisions of the treaty called for Sweden to return Novgorod and its other acquisitions in northern Russia to the Muscovite government but allowed Sweden to retain Karelia and Ingria, between Estonia and Finland, thus cutting off Russia’s access to the Baltic Sea. Also, Russia had to pay Sweden an indemnity of 20,000 rubles, and Moreover, the treaty required that Sweden’s Prince Philip renounced renounce his claim to the Russian throne.

This settlement was observed until 1656, when the Swedish king Charles X invaded Poland and declared himself the new Polish king. Russia also was at war with Poland, and, objecting to Swedish control of that country as well as hoping to regain some territory in the Baltic region, it turned its forces against Sweden. But the resulting peace settlement, concluded at Valiesar (1658) and confirmed at Cardis (1661), made no territorial changes.

The treaty did not meet Swedish expectations of gaining control of Russia’s trade with western Europe by ending Russian control of the White Sea.