In Sweden, a field book belonging to the Swedish king and military commander Charles XII has been discovered in the library collection of the University of Gothenburg. Among other things, it contains references to the Battle of Poltava. This was reported by Sweden Herald, citing Göteborgs-Posten.
The unique publication was discovered by Antoinette Granberg, an associate professor and senior lecturer in Slavic languages at the University of Gothenburg. The field book was stored in the so-called Hvitfeld collection, which was donated to the university library in 1967. According to the researcher, prior to the discovery, she believed she might be the only person aware of the existence of this document.
The book consists of 268 pages and features a leather binding with a gilded inscription on the spine. It documents events from 1707 to 1717 — effectively up to the final year of Charles XII’s life. Some sections were created before the Battle of Poltava in 1709.
The publication contains detailed illustrations, including diagrams, drawings and plans of troop deployments. Several chapters bear the king’s personal signature — Carolus. The book also includes the mark LS (Latin loco sigilli, meaning “place of the seal”). Among the signatures are those of Charles XII’s closest adviser, Carl Piper, and Baron Samuel Ockerholm, who headed the royal chancellery.
Historians note that the chronology of the book covers the period of the Northern War, the key event of which was the Battle of Poltava on 27 June 1709. It was at this point that the Swedish king Charles XII became an ally of the Ukrainian hetman Ivan Mazepa.
Ivan Mazepa, hetman of the Zaporizhian Army and head of the Ukrainian Cossack state, broke his alliance with the Muscovite Tsardom at a decisive moment in the war and joined forces with Sweden, hoping to secure independence for Ukraine. The defeat of the Swedish-Ukrainian forces at Poltava became a turning point in the Northern War and had far-reaching consequences for the history of Eastern Europe.