Fact check

I want to make sure I understand some history correctly.
So Lithuania and Poland united into a de facto union in 1387 to fend off the Teutonic Knights. Lithuanians ended up birthing the Jagiellon dynasty that ruled over both Poland and Lithuania until 1569 (Union of Lublin), creating what is known as the gloden age of Poland and ensuring prosperity in both nations. Then poles and other foreigners became Grand Dukes of Lithuania/Kings of Poland and fucked up everything by spreading Polish culture into Lithuania, thus creating more cultural tension, guaranteeing the negative repercussions of a multi-cultural society. This, combined with the wonky government (Liberum veto, Golden Liberty), eventually weakened the nation, to the point where it could've been easily partitioned by the neighbouring nations. Am I correct?

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Hadiach
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I know it's and obscure country but still, help me out here

Current day Belarus is also the successor of the old Duchy of Lithuania and they actually feel positive about this heritage.

But no. The system worked for quite some time before in 1652 the first Parliament was dissolved because of liberum veto (long story). I think the fact that the Commonwealth abandoned dynastic monarchy was the biggest mistake. It's true that the monarchs didn't have that much power (hence it's called golden or noble democracy) but he was still an influential figure and the fact that he was chosen like a president meant that foreign powers could influence the choice which eventually happened. Also the most influential people in the east were Lithuanians or Ruthenians. They were polonized yes but I guess it's just what happens. By the end of the 14th century Poland was emerging as the strongest country in the region (Hungary and Bohemia had dynastic problems). So I guess it was a matter of "dominant" cultures influencing others.


So the order goes like this.

>freedom loving and prosperous country
>weak monarchy means that after the end of Jagiellonian dynasty the nobles decide on electing their monarchs
>even though some kings were quite effective the ambitions of some of them (particularly Sigmund Vasa who wanted to be the king of Poland AND his native Sweden) resulted in catastrophic wars throughout the entire 17th century
>the country becomes weaker as a result
>foreign countries influence the choice of the monarch
>succession conflicts and kings being friendly towards other countries (like Russia) ensues
>partitions

So in essence, it would have been much better for Lithuania to form a temporary military union with Poland in 1387 and cut off contact afterwards, as Poland served no other benefit?

Lithuanians should rule over the animals known as P*les.

>Current day Belarus is also the successor of the old Duchy of Lithuania

Stopped reading there

I very much doubt you're NOT Lithuanian, OP.
>creating what is known as the gloden age of Poland and ensuring prosperity in both nations. Then poles and other foreigners became Grand Dukes of Lithuania/Kings of Poland
Golden age of Lithuania ended with elective monarchy, golden age of Commonwealth started in 1569 - Jagiellons were good, but not THAT good, some kings before (Casimir the Great) and elective ones (Bathory) proved to be better. Especially Bathory, since he kickstarted the whole thing.
>and fucked up everything by spreading Polish culture into Lithuania, thus creating more cultural tension, guaranteeing the negative repercussions of a multi-cultural society.
Actually no, PLC had almost no actual cultural tension - Ruthenians had their language become one of official languages and were allowed to keep their faith, as for Lithuanians - they had it coming really, there was literally no "Lithuanian culture" to speak of.
>Literacy
>Civilisation
>Political ties with Catholic Europe
>Less contact with Orthodox Europe
>Stronger ally (muh size is a meme, Poland was militarily, culturally and economically much more important)
All that happened because of Poland, and Lithuania wouldn't under any circumstance survive without it (same can be said for Poland, except Poland was in better position). Another thing is that Poles did not kill Lithuanian customs and language - Lithuanians LARPed for a good while as Ruthenians (which also significantly contributed on civilisational level, even if backwardeness caused by distance from the west and mongol culture diminished their own a bit) and after uniting with Poland they started LARPing as Poles - it's Lithuanians taking up Polish faith, Polish customs, Polish language and so on. Same can be said for Poland and any other country in Europe - their elites took the religions of Romans, started speaking Latin and so on, no "force" involved, while peasantry kept their language

It was a marriage out of convenience and from time to time there was some bickering but it still proved to be the longest union in European history that benefited both. All those countries that exist today emerged because of the Commonwealth. Culturally they were rather close. Definitely close enough to make it hard to tell them apart. Some Lithuanian nobles could speak Polish, some could be more nativist. They all dressed the same anyway. The notion of nationality (or it's 17th c. version) was very fluid.

Ruthenia was pretty close to become the third member of the union and perhaps all those uprisings would have some positive effects but that concept failed as well.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Hadiach

Being separate meant becoming easy prey to Russia.

Cuck

Given the multicultural status of the POC and the fact that despite its eventual demise it brought many positive changes and it was pretty cool it should've been something that brings all those nations together. I know Poland and Belarus think so and Belarus was basically historical Lithiania anyway.

>Ruthenians had their language become official
The treaty of Hadiach was pretty late in the game, and it was definitely in response to significant Ruthenian opposition to efforts of conversion & Polonization.

>I very much doubt you're NOT Lithuanian, OP.
I am, sorry if I'm a bit biased, really just trying to figure out where it went wrong

>Being separate meant becoming easy prey to Russia.
Honestly, I think the Swedes and Germans did far more harm than the Russians. The Deluge devastated the Polish heartlands, territories necessary for the income to maintain the state. Then, later, we have Frederick the Great devaluing their currency and annexing Danzig, destroying the Polish economy by eliminating their control over the grain trade.

Sure, the Russians got most of the land, but most of the land was shit. Prussia, before the Napoleonic Wars, got the best part of the PLC.

Just don't think breaking off from Poland wouldn't turn Lithuania into another Courland especially if another ambitious Swede became the king.

So Lithuania and Poland united into a de facto union in 1387 to fend off the Teutonic Knights.
For Poland the Teutonic Kinght's threat was quite low on the list of reasons why they wanted to go to bed with Lithuania - it was the later propaganda that made it look like that (Grunwald myth, queen Hedwig hagiography, general anti-german sentiment, XIX/XX century historiography etc.). Poles and TK's had a very solid and long lasting peace settlement since 1343. From lithuanian perspective; well, they were in a very dire geoopolitical situation and the time had finally come to choose the direction they wanted to pick - either east or west. They picked west.
> Lithuanians ended up birthing the Jagiellon dynasty
Jogaila was cucked. The real progenitor of the so called 'Jagiellonian' dynasty might have been Jan z Rogowa/Wawrzyniec Zaręba/Jan z Koniecpola/Piotr z Kurowa/Piotr ze Szczekocin/Dobiesław ze Szczekocin - all of whom had a pleasure to fuck queen Sophia. And of course all of them were Poles.
>creating what is known as the gloden age of Poland and ensuring prosperity in both nations.
Maybe for nobility and the kikes. For the majority of people who lived in Poland, things took a terrible turn since Jogaila was crowned king. Can't comment on Lithuania though.

I'm having a supper now. I'll try to come back and finish this later.

There's a problem about identifying nationality in the Commonwealth. There's a huge number of people born before WWII in Wilno and other places. They are 100% Polish but also in some ways different. We call some cities in Lithuania and Ukraine Polish islands in the sea of Lithiania/Ukraine but are they legit genetically Polish or just polonized? Or maybe this is just a remnant from the times of the union when more people spoke Polish regardless of ethnicity and considered themselves "Polish" (as an umbrella term which simply meant a citizen of the Commonwealth). This is why Poland, Belarus and Lithuania have so many common historical figures. Like Kościuszko for example who was born in modern day Belarus and is celebrated there but is first and foremost known as a Polish patriot (doesn't help the fact that Belarusians are thought to be the youngest European nation but I'd rather not get into that debate).

(cont.)
This is also why Lithuanians hate us so much - they became utterly irrevelant after 16th century, with their nobility speaking Polish (their "beloved" Piłsudzki was Lithuanian) and they were left with nothing, because the fields they farmed were owned by their "Lithuanian" nobility. They had nothing to say about it while their very elite became Polish. I mean, other than Piłsudzki, the only real famous Lithuanian I can think of was a certain Radziwiłł, who managed to destroy PLC in long-term because muh independence. Some of them like to spread lies that we forced them to speak our language, but then again - it's Lithuanian nobility that willingly fucked up other Lithuanians, and Polish clergy that converted them could NOT in any way polonise them - masses in Poland were conducted in Latin until 60's, so it would make no sense to make masses for Lithuanians in Polish over four centuries back.
What's true though is that Poles destroyed PLC - when Lithuanians fucked something up, they only bit a finger where Poles tore an arm off (Radziwiłł and Lithuanians sabotaging Vienna war relief being prime examples). It's not because Lithuanians were better at ruling PLC though, it's because they were irrevelant. While we see Poles breaking the Commonwealth, we also see they are the ones who keep it apart. Lithuanians made no larger attempts to save it, they just wanted polonised nobility to fuck off and stop oppressing them.
Again, for the most part it's the fault of polonised nobility, not the Polish elite itself.

This picture is seriously confusing. I guess it's somewhat related to the Anglosphere "Poland was always bullied" meme.

How exactly did the poles destroy the PLC?

>So in essence, it would have been much better for Lithuania to form a temporary military union with Poland in 1387 and cut off contact afterwards, as Poland served no other benefit?
It's the other way around. For Lithuania, dissolving the union was a mortal threat. Poland meanwhile would have been able to find some other arrangement, with Brandenburg or Bohemia perhaps.

ITT: anons confusing people born in historic lithuania with actual lithuanians

What's the difference?

the former were mostly poles or ruthenians

you're basing this on what?

on them never saying one lithuanian word in their life

I suppose he meant that they considered themselves Polish. As I already wrote it's a very uncertain subject. It was the longest union in European history so these people only remembered unified Commonwealth.

The original Grand Duchy of Lithuania comprised all of Belarus, most of modern Lithuania (not Memel), some of Russia, and most of Ukraine. Later on, Ukraine (Ruthenia) was passed over to Poland.

There's also an argument as to whether the people of modern Lithuania are the historical lithuanians, or whether that's the Belarussians. So far as I can tell, the original Lithuanians were the Zmudgins of modern Lithuania, but they became heavily Slavicized by their Belarussian and Ruthenian subjects even before getting in bed with the Poles.

>but they became heavily Slavicized by their Belarussian and Ruthenian subjects

How do you get "Slavicized" by your subjects? There was contact before the conquests. It's clear that the two cultures lived together and shared aspects. Romuva is similar to Slavic paganism, but it isn't quite the same thing.

>There's also an argument as to whether the people of modern Lithuania are the historical lithuanians

Lithuanians converted to Catholicism, the Belorussians are Orthodox. Your argument is a ridiculous one.

What are you talking about you fucking retard?

jeez why so angry

u mad bro xD

le epin trolle

wtf are you on about

why so angry?

Ruthenian was the administrative language in the first few centuries. I don't see how that relates to modern day Belarus though as they speak almost exclusively Russian.

>How do you get "Slavicized" by your subjects?
How did the Roman elite become Hellenic after conquering Greece? How did the Germans become Latin after conquering Rome? How did Steppe Turks become Persianized after conquering parts of greater Persia? When an inferior culture conquers a greater one, or when the conquerors are a small minority, their own culture is often devoured in the process.

>Lithuanians converted to Catholicism, the Belorussians are Orthodox. Your argument is a ridiculous one.
I don't think you actually understand my argument.

>How do you get "Slavicized" by your subjects?

Quite easily. Just look at the early examples of Kievan Rus' and Novgorod.

>Grand Dukes of Lithuania/Kings of Poland and fucked up everything by spreading Polish culture into Lithuania
No one spreaded anything. It was natural process where nobles voluntarilly accepted polish culture as dominant one and started to use the language.
Lithuanian language was in decline since conquest of slavic land in favour of ruthenian/russian or whatever you wanna call it.

>become Hellenic after conquering Greece?

lol stopped reading right there

please read a book

The truth is - if not for union with Poland Lithuania would eventually fall into Russian sphere and become dominated by orthodox/russian culture instead. They just weren't simply populous enough to culturally dominate the lands they conquered.

Quite a feat by the Lithuanians considering how few of them there was.