A field diary of King Charles XII found in Sweden. It also mentions Belarus
A field diary of King Charles XII, which he kept during the Great Northern War of the early 18th century, a war that was also fought on Belarusian lands, has been found in Sweden, reported historian Andrei Kotlyarchuk on his Facebook page. He called this event an archival sensation.
According to Kotlyarchuk, among other things, the Swedish king's notes in this diary include mentions of Minsk, Holovchin, Mogilev, as well as the transition of Ivan Mazepa, hetman of Cossack Ukraine, to the Swedish side.
The 268-page book with notes and drawings that Charles XII personally made during his campaigns was found in the library of Gothenburg University, reports the publication Göteborgs-Posten.
“No one knew it existed,” says researcher Antoaneta Granberg, who found the book while searching for Slavic manuscripts in the large Hvitfeldtska samlingen (Hvitfeldtska Collection), which has not yet been cataloged.
The notes in the book cover the period from the summer of 1707 to the autumn of 1717. Besides the king himself, his assistants Carl Piper and Samuel Åkerhielm also made entries here.
Granberg also learned that other, previously known copies of the diary are kept in Sweden, but they do not contain the illustrations found in the original.
They promise that the diary will soon be digitized and made available on the website of the Gothenburg University Library.
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