PATKUL, JOHANN REINHOLD Livonian politician and agitator, was born on July 27, 166o, in prison at Stockholm, where his father lay under suspicion of treason. He was a captain in the Swedish army when, in 1689, at the head of a deputation of Livonian gentry, he went to Stockholm to pro test against the rigour with which the land-recovery project of Charles XI. was being carried out in his native province. Another petition addressed to the king in the diet in 1692, on behalf of the rights of the Livonian gentry, involved him in a government prosecution. Patkul fled from Stockholm to Switzerland, and was condemned in contumaciam to lose his right hand and his estates. For the next four years he led a vagabond life, but in 1698, after vainly petitioning the new king, Charles XII., for pardon, he proceeded to the court of Augustus the Strong, elector of Saxony and king of Poland, at Dresden and bombarded him with pro posals for the partition of Sweden. His first plan was a combina tion against her of Saxony, Denmark and Brandenburg; but, Brandenburg failing him, he was obliged very unwillingly to admit Russia into the partnership. The tsar was to be content with Ingria and Estonia, while Augustus was to take Livonia, nominally as a fief of Poland, but really as an hereditary possession of the Saxon house. Military operations against Sweden's Baltic prov inces were to be begun simultaneously by the Saxons and Russians. After thus forging the first link of the partition treaty, Patkul proceeded to Moscow, and, at a secret conference held at Preo brazhenskoye, easily persuaded Peter the Great to accede to the league (Nov. 11, 1699). Throughout the earlier, unluckier days
of the Great Northern War, Patkul was the mainstay of the confederates. At Vienna, in 1702, he picked up the Scottish general George Benedict Ogilvie, and enlisted him in Peter's serv ice. In the same year he himself exchanged the Saxon for the Russian service. On Aug. 19, 1704, he succeeded, at last, in bring ing about a treaty of alliance between Russia and the Polish re public to strengthen the hands of Augustus, but he failed to bring Prussia also into the anti-Swedish league because of Frederick I.'s fear of Charles and jealousy of Peter. From Berlin Patkul went on to Dresden to conclude an agreement with the imperial com missioners for the transfer of the Russian contingent from the Saxon to the Austrian service. The Saxon ministers, after pro testing against the new arrangement, arrested Patkul and shut him up in the fortress of Sonnenstein (Dec. 19, 1705), disregarding the remonstrances of Peter against this violation of international law. After the peace of Altranstadt (Sept. 24, 1707) he was de livered up to Charles, and at Kazimierz in Poland (Oct. so, 1707) was broken alive on the wheel, as a traitor to Sweden. Charles rejected an appeal for mercy from his sister, the princess Ulrica, on the ground that Patkul, as a traitor, could not be pardoned for example's sake.
See 0. Sjogren, Johan Reinhold Patkul (Swed.) (Stockholm, 1882) ; Anton Buchholtz, Beitrdge zur Lebensgeschichte J. R. Patkuls (Leip zig, 1893). Patkul's fate provided the material for a tragedy by Gutzkow.