Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth: A Visual History

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was created by the Union of Lublin in 1569, merging the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania under one elected monarch and one parliament (Sejm). At its peak around 1619 it covered nearly a million km2 from the Baltic to the Black Sea, with about 11 million people, and its winged hussars beat Sweden, Russia and the Ottomans. Its 'Golden Liberty' gave the nobility power over the king and let any deputy block legislation (liberum veto). Wars in the 1650s, then Russian domination, ended in the partitions of 1772, 1793 and 1795 that erased it from the map.

When it existed: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Commonwealth territory

Timeline of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

1. 1569
   Union of Lublin
2. 1573
   First royal election; Warsaw Confederation
3. 1610
   Polish troops occupy Moscow
4. 1648
   Khmelnytsky uprising
5. 1655
   The Swedish Deluge
6. 1683
   Battle of Vienna
7. 1772
   First partition
8. 1791
   3 May Constitution
9. 1795
   Third partitionThe state ceases to exist.

Golden Liberty

Poland and Lithuania had shared Jagiellonian rulers since 1386; the Union of Lublin made the tie permanent as the last Jagiellon died childless. Kings were elected by the whole nobility (about 10 percent of the population) gathered on a field near Warsaw, and swore to the Henrician Articles limiting their power. Religious tolerance was guaranteed by the Warsaw Confederation of 1573. Stephen Bathory beat Ivan the Terrible; Sigismund III's armies occupied Moscow in 1610-1612.

The Deluge and decline

The Khmelnytsky Cossack uprising of 1648, the Russian invasion of 1654 and the Swedish 'Deluge' of 1655-1660 devastated the country and killed perhaps a third of the population. John III Sobieski's relief of Vienna in 1683 was the last great triumph. In the eighteenth century the liberum veto paralysed the Sejm, magnates ran private armies, and Russia treated the Commonwealth as a protectorate, dictating royal elections.

Reform and partition

Russia, Prussia and Austria seized about a third of the territory in 1772. The reformers of the Great Sejm passed the Constitution of 3 May 1791, Europe's first modern written constitution, abolishing the veto and creating a hereditary monarchy. Russia invaded; the second partition of 1793 followed; Kosciuszko's uprising of 1794 was crushed and the third partition of 1795 abolished the state. Poland reappeared in 1918.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Russian Empire (1721 to 1917)
• Swedish Empire (1611 to 1721)
• Ottoman Empire (1299 to 1922)
• Holy Roman Empire (800 to 1806)
• Kievan Rus (882 to 1240)
• Golden Horde (Jochi Khanate) (1242 to 1502)

Wars of the same era and region

• Northern Wars (1554 to 1721)
• Polish-Ottoman wars (1485 to 1699)
• Great Northern War (1700 to 1721)
• Thirty Years' War (1618 to 1648)
• Eighty Years' War (Dutch Revolt) (1568 to 1648)
• Franco-Dutch War (1672 to 1678)

8 surprising things about the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

1. The liberum veto let a single deputy shout 'I do not allow' and dissolve the Sejm; between 1573 and 1763 about a third of Sejms broke up this way.
2. The winged hussars, heavy cavalry with feathered frames on their backs, won at Kircholm in 1605 against odds of three to one.
3. The Commonwealth was the most religiously tolerant state in Europe and had the largest Jewish population in the world.
4. Poland's kings included a Frenchman (Henry of Valois, who fled after five months), a Hungarian, three Swedes and two Saxons.
5. The 3 May 1791 constitution was the second written national constitution in the world after the American.
6. The last king, Stanislaw August Poniatowski, was Catherine the Great's former lover, installed by her army.
7. In 1683 Sobieski's charge at Vienna, with 18,000 horsemen, was one of the largest cavalry charges in history.
8. The Commonwealth's population was about 10 percent noble, compared with 1 to 2 percent in most of Europe.

Sources

• Poland: The Commonwealth Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Wikipedia
• Partitions of Poland Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Norman Davies, God's Playground: A History of Poland (1981) Oxford University Press

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