Please enlighten me on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Veeky Forums

Please enlighten me on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Veeky Forums

I am friends with a Polish co-worker and we like to debate about history, but he's always bringing up the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and going on and on about it being the greatest nation ever

>muh elective monarchy!
>muh religious freedom!
>muh superior cavalry!
>we wuz nobility!

So was it a big deal or no? e.g. was it really that much better to be living in the Pol-Lit Commonwealth rather than in say France or Russia?

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They were the weakest of 4 empires in the region, and the other 3 circled her drooling for whatever piece they could grab.

You don't survive for about 200 years by being weaker than all your neighbors.

You do when all your neighbors survive long after you

Huh?

You're obviously the weakest if the other empires outlast you

They fell apart around the same time the greats of the 18th century came around.

When Frederick and Peter came around, they had no chance.

It doesn't help that they've been long time rivals of the only people that could've helped them during the circular onslaught, Sweden.

He means Poland was wiped off the map when its neighbors saw her weakness and did not come to exist again until after WW1.

No the Warsaw free city does not count.

You still don't last for 200 years if you are the weakest all that time.
You may be weaker closer to the end, but probably not all the time.

You could argue that individually they were stronger than each other three, but they could hardly survived all of their rivals ganging up on them at once.

no you couldn't.

Prussia and Russia were clearly stronger, only the Hapsburgs were somewhat close to equal footing.

Given the situation that Poland was/has always been in they honestly didn't do bad considering who they were surrounded by all the time. But to go so far as day they were the greatest nation/commonwealth ever is a bit of a long shot. If they hadn't fallen apart after 200 years and were still existent now or even lasted another 100 years you might be able to make a case for them. Even still it would be one built on sand.

>ITT historical dick measuring.

Praise God Veeky Forums has yet not received Countryflags.

I hope it never happens since I live in America and everything I'd say would be met with "fat" and "get shot". And the best part is I'm not even American myself.

While other European countries were becoming absolute monarchies, Poland went to the exact opposite end, giving even more powers to the aristocracy. It reached the point where a single aristocrat had the power, the "liberum veto", of nullify any decision reached by the parliament.

Now, I'm fond of aristocratic liberalism but Poland really went full retard with it, specially when you are surrounded by Prussia and Russia, who obviously exploited it's weaknesses to conquer it. But that was only at the 18th century, in the 16th and 17th centuries Poland was STRONK and saved Europe a bunch of times from Turks, Tatars and other plagues.

>>muh elective monarchy!
Hol up
*makes pierogi*
so uh
*curses Russia*
you be sayin
*rides pegasus cavalry*
I can call
*plays witcher*
liberum veto and kurwa?

t. Janusz of Malkovia, 15th son, no land, no money, nobleman

>muh religious freedom!
Correct.

Oh, you want to play the game and be relevant? Church is that way, baptisms start every 6 hours.

>>muh superior cavalry!
Depends on the time. But they definitely had times when their use of cavalry was outstanding.

>we wuz nobility!
See first point. Lots of people wuz nobility.

I wish the intermarium happened to some degree.

Yes you could

Poland was one of the most populous nations in Europe and had a substantial and high quality military. The biggest reasons she was split up was her her position and weak government. Poland certainly had the ability to take on any of the other Empires of the time if it were a 1v1 and not a gang bang

Funny that he didn't mention serfdom.
>No the Warsaw free city does not count.
It was Krakow.

Commonwealth's problem lied, since the beginning, in inability to compromise noble's interests for their national security which ended up in inability to apply long-term plans.

Take cossacks as an example. The state by itself didn't lose much by agreeing on their demands other than certain kind of not really noble nobles who got there in late 1590's to force Lithuania to join the union and take as much land for themselves as they could.

And then you pick foreign policy. Had the king been able to actually get the army into Russia and they would take it over, being orthodox or not. However the "invading force" was private expedition by some high ranking nobles and the rest didn't want to join. Had they taken out or heavily weaken one of their enemies and they may have been able to survive. Same goes for Sweden, people in Poland learn about Battle of Kircholm which sure was a stunning victory however... Commonwealth lost the war. The nobility(AGAIN) didn't want to fight over it so they've just settled for peace treaty in which they've lost tons of "crown's"(owned by king) lands in current-day Estonia and Latvia. I think they won all the battles but king didn't have money to deal with fortresses or repel besieging forces and nobility was completely against going all-out to war or paying taxes.

This happened again and again repeatedly and so the country was picked piece by piece by its neighbours and then the partitions started.

And then when they've simply had to modernise themselves, but failed. For instance - they needed standing army but it came in 1791, they needed to tax the nobles but it came in 1791. Basically every since the elective monarchy started foreign monarchs tried to shift the political system to be more sustainable but always failed and when at last they've started reforming themselves it was already too late.

Prussia used to be a vassal though.
It depends on what era we're talking about.

>1590
I meant 1560's

Honestly given the doubly whammy of the khmelnytsky uprising and the swedish deluge, its surprising they lasted as long as they did.

The uprising happened because the nobles controlled the king and deluge happened when Russia(that wasn't taken out earlier on) was already turning eastern part of the country into mess while Swedes(again, strengthened by the fact that Commonwealth couldn't win war against them for mentioned reasons) attacked and then large part if not majority of nobility decided that "we help swedes nao".

If such thing would happen in let's say - France - by the time the king would take control over his country he would have half of his nobility purged. In Commonwealth they got scot-free apart from biggest offenders.

As I've said before, inability to start long-term policy of containing its aggressive neighbours dating back to 1580's or so was the reason for Commonwealth's downfall.

It was a strong regional power, the only real competition for a long time was Sweden, Austria and the Ottomans on the count Prussia/Brandenburg and Russia were irrelevant.

Yeah they never really recovered stability wise after the Jagiellons died out.

prussian proxxy.
they gave us uhlans and polish lancer/winged hussars. some of the greatest strike force of their era. very respectable in particualr to the relevence of its geolocation@east

As a lithuanian, I can say it was a fucking joke with all the veto shit. No improvement in centuries and just a poor, chaotic kingdom. Don't know why lithuanian was even in the name, though, since we there either literal fucking slave niggers or cultural polinised traitors.

Your entire country should be a Polish province desu

Entire Poland shouldn't even exist that abortion of country is built upon stolen land from other countries.

All "land" was stolen once.

litwini jedza guwno xD

>stolen

You're mixing up theft with robbery. The whole "stolen' land is an American thing, bc Injuns were dragged around the country with "treaties".

It's because Americans acted like bigots and pretended that landgrabbing and imperialism and tribalism were horrible and outdated, but still wanted to get those sweet acres.

Most people were always proud of how they slayed their enemies and took their women, land and other possessions.

Poles are a lesser people, slavic subhumans. Notice how under the rule of natives Poland is always shit and prosper only when foreigners are in charge. They barely have any achievements, most of the notable or most successful people from Poland were/are of foreign ancestry. They speak a repulsive language, look like orcs and annoy everyone with their subhuman behaviour. What is Poland known for in the world? For cheap labour, criminals, slutty women and retarded potato faced people. Even fucking Ukraine is more prestigious because at least they have nice language, interesting culture and beautiful nature. Poland has nothing. They are shit tier people and it's a big regret that Germans and Russians didn't removed these lowly rats from the face of Earth. Poland was, is and will be that poor eastern country associated with misery and holocaust.
Pathetic joke of a country, the clown and anus of Europe

Didn't UK also gradually erode the power of the king in favor of nobility? How did they managed to work it out without fucking themselves over?

>and prosper only

They never prospered no matter who ruled them, stop making shit up.

>Ukraine
No such thing

It probably had something to do with not being stuck in between two empires

>what is San Marino
>what is Liechtenstein
Just because your neighbors don't invade you for 200 years doesn't mean you aren't weak as shit.

>Oh, you want to play the game and be relevant? Church is that way, baptisms start every 6 hours.

Tatar nobles generally had the same rights as Christian nobles, even though it fluctuated a lot and in the end they became assimilated and mostly DID get baptized.
That's about the only larger non-Christian group that had nobility.
The Jews were counted as a fourth estate and had right that even nobles didn't, like brewing certain kinds of alcohol and owning roadside inns.

In XVIth centuries there were parliament sessions where it was Catholic delegates who were outnumbered by Protestants. Plenty of influential philosophers were Protestant like MikoĊ‚aj Rej, or even anti-trinitarian Arians. Later of course the Counter-reformation took root and this lessened, but earlier on it was pretty varied.

On other points full agreement. You've had it quite shitty if you were anything but a well-off noble. And even as a poor noble (they constituted 10% of populace, so not everyone had property) you were just a political tool.

Foreign writers noted how peasants were treated like property. Even if there were indeed countries that had it even worse, like Russia (Russian peasants would flee across the border), that's quite inexcusable.

But what's worse is that the concentration of power in the hands of nobility stunted the growth of burgeois, which prevented the creation of a modern state, governed by professionals that actually followed chain of command and the rule of law.

Why are you applying XIXth century notions of nationality and political self-determination to a thoroughly pre-modern polity? Nobles all around Europe played loose with national identity - what mattered was which monarch they served, not which language they spoke to their wife. Also, Lithuania adopted Ruthenian as a court language even before the union, so it's not like anyone spoke Lithuanian anyway.
And if you weren't a noble, you were a slave nigger regardless of your nationality.

>muh Volyniha """"""""massacre"""""""" , #
>Jebac UPA/bandera!!!! so fucking salty u butchers!!!!!!!!!
>YOU BELARUS WUZ REAL LITHUANIANS!!!!!!1!1
>LITVA, not LITHUANIA
>catholic ultranationalists even though pope kisses refugee's feet, so you need to allow them in officially
>we got rekt in Mohacs, but GLORY 2 HUSARI!!!!!!!!!!!!! DON'T SAY HOW ZAPHORIZIE ANARCHIST COSSACKS REKT US

here is what you need to do

A correction is in order,they've become the weakest of four empires in the 18th century,after several devastating wars and the Cossack rebellion,but prior to that,they were one of the most powerful and in the 16th century,THE most powerful European country.

Prussia only became stronger at the very beginning of the 18th century,which is one of the main reasons why she couldn't have taken on Poland all by herself.

Also,during most of her history,Prussia was actually one of Poland's staunchest vassals.

If you're referring to alleged "German land",just keep in mind that they've acquired through illegal measures during the last Partition of Poland.

While we're at it,do you even know Prussia came to be?

Being this historically illiterate in the age of information should be a punishable offense

" most of the notable or most successful people from Poland were/are of foreign ancestry"-Most German scientists and inventors of greater renown were in fact,of Jewish origin,so what of it?

Why have you joined a topic if you know nothing of it?Are you mentally challenged by any chance?

>Pol-Lit Commonwealth rather than in say France or Russia?

Saxony and Austria had to double their border guards in order to keep their serfs from fleeing to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth,so the answer on your question is yes,they were.

Please kill yourself if you are comparing those states
PLC was invaded many times before the final three

>in the 16th century,THE most powerful European country.

I would've been sure that this was bait but I remember you being that weird Slavic nationalist from Bosnia.

>Prussia was actually one of Poland's staunchest vassals.

Huh? The duchy of Prussia was de-facto independent, and I wouldn't really call this (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Marienburg) a "staunch vassal".

>If you're referring to alleged "German land",just keep in mind that they've acquired through illegal measures during the last Partition of Poland.

That's not true for most of the "Recovered Territories". Areas like Silesia, East-Brandenburg and Pommerania weren't part of Poland anymore when the partitions happened.

>Being this historically illiterate in the age of information should be a punishable offense

You're replying to a bait pasta (created by a Pole I think).

>-Most German scientists and inventors of greater renown were in fact,of Jewish origin

Nah. Many, but certainly not most.

>So was it a big deal or no?
yes, for long time it was the top power in region. The Commonwealth was eventually killed by absolutism, ie system with strong central government, good organization and taxation which enabled building of strong powerful standing army.
>was it really that much better to be living in the Pol-Lit Commonwealth
for nobility definitely. Even the poorest nobles enjoyed the Golden Liberty. For the king, burghers and serf not so much.