Ahmed III, 1673–1736, Ottoman sultan (1703–30), brother and successor of Mustafa II to the throne of the Ottoman Empire (Turkey). He gave asylum to Charles XII of Sweden and to Mazepa after Pe...

Zoshchenko, Mikhail Mikhailovich, 1895–1958, Soviet humorist. Zoshchenko was born in Poltava, but spent most of his life in St. Petersburg where he attended the university. His first collectio...

Rehnskiöld, Karl Gustaf, 1651–1722, Swedish field marshal. One of the ablest lieutenants of Charles XII in the Northern War, he played an important part in the Polish campaign of 1701–3 and de...

Augustus II, 1670–1733, king of Poland (1697–1733) and, as Frederick Augustus I, elector of Saxony (1694–1733). He commanded the imperial army against the Turks (1695–96), but had no success a...

Mazepa, Ivan, c.1640–1709, Cossack hetman [leader] in the Russian Ukraine. He was made hetman (1687) on the insistence of Prince Gallitzin, adviser to the Russian regent, Sophia Alekseyevna, a...

Stanislaus I, 1677–1766, king of Poland (1704–1709, 1733–35) and duke of Lorraine (1735–66). He was born Stanislaus Leszczynski. Early in the Northern War (1700–1721), Charles XII of Sweden ov...

Charles XII, 1682–1718, king of Sweden (1697–1718), son and successor of Charles XI. The regency under which he succeeded was abolished in 1697 at the request of the Riksdag. At the coronation...

, 1799–1837, Russian poet and prose writer, among the foremost figures in Russian literature. He was born in Moscow of an old noble family; his mother's grandfather was Abram Hannibal, the bla...

Northern War, 1700–1721, general European conflict, fought in N and E Europe at the same time that the War of the Spanish Succession was fought in the west and the south. It arose chiefly from...

Zaporizhzhya, Rus. Zaporozhye, city (1989 pop. 884,000), capital of Zaporizhzhya region, in Ukraine, a port on the Dnieper River, opposite the island of Khortytsya. The city, founded in 1770 o...