The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
Poland and Lithuania unite to form one of Europe's largest states, a multi-ethnic, multi-faith "republic of nobles" with an elected king.
- The Oxford History of Poland-Lithuania, Volume I: The Making of the Polish-Lithuanian Union, 1385–1569 — Robert Frost, Oxford University Press (2015)
- God's Playground: A History of Poland (2 vols, revised edition) — Norman Davies, Oxford University Press (2005)
- A Concise History of Poland (3rd edition) — Jerzy Lukowski and Hubert Zawadzki, Cambridge University Press (2019)
- POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews: 1000 Years of History — POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, POLIN Museum
In 1385, at Krewo, Grand Duke Jogaila (Jagiełło) of Lithuania agreed to become a Catholic and marry the young Polish queen Jadwiga, uniting the crowns. The Jagiellonian dynasty that followed defeated the Teutonic Knights at Grunwald in 1410, one of the largest battles of medieval Europe and still a national legend. In 1569 the Union of Lublin turned the personal union into a single Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita) with a common parliament, stretching at its height from the Baltic almost to the Black Sea.
- The Oxford History of Poland-Lithuania, Volume I: The Making of the Polish-Lithuanian Union, 1385–1569 — Robert Frost, Oxford University Press (2015)
- God's Playground: A History of Poland (2 vols, revised edition) — Norman Davies, Oxford University Press (2005)
A republic of nobles
The Commonwealth was unusual. The nobility, the szlachta, by most estimates somewhere between 6% and 10% of the population, far more than in most countries, elected their king and sat in the Sejm (parliament). The 1573 Warsaw Confederation guaranteed peace among Christian denominations at a time when the rest of Europe was fighting wars of religion. Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, Armenians, Muslim Tatars and Karaites lived within its borders.
- God's Playground: A History of Poland (2 vols, revised edition) — Norman Davies, Oxford University Press (2005)
- A Concise History of Poland (3rd edition) — Jerzy Lukowski and Hubert Zawadzki, Cambridge University Press (2019)
It was also home to the largest Jewish community in the world. Jews, many of whom had fled persecution further west, had their own self-governing Council of Four Lands, and Poland became the heartland of Ashkenazi Jewish culture for centuries.
- POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews: 1000 Years of History — POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, POLIN Museum
- God's Playground: A History of Poland (2 vols, revised edition) — Norman Davies, Oxford University Press (2005)
Decline
Noble liberty had a darker side. Most peasants were serfs. The liberum veto, which let any single deputy break up a session of the Sejm, paralysed government from the mid-seventeenth century. The Cossack rising of 1648, the Swedish “Deluge” of 1655–60 and later wars devastated the country. King Jan III Sobieski’s relief of Vienna from the Ottomans in 1683 was a last great triumph. In the eighteenth century, Russia, Prussia and Austria treated the weakened state as a protectorate, and then carved it up.
- God's Playground: A History of Poland (2 vols, revised edition) — Norman Davies, Oxford University Press (2005)
- A Concise History of Poland (3rd edition) — Jerzy Lukowski and Hubert Zawadzki, Cambridge University Press (2019)
A free, tolerant commonwealth of many peoples, governed by law and parliament, which offered a refuge to persecuted Jews and Protestants and defended Christian Europe at Vienna in 1683.
- God's Playground: A History of Poland (2 vols, revised edition) — Norman Davies, Oxford University Press (2005)
- The Polish Way: A Thousand-Year History of the Poles and Their Culture — Adam Zamoyski, John Murray (1987)
For Orthodox Ruthenian peasants and Cossacks, the Commonwealth also meant Polish and Polonised lords, serfdom and religious pressure, which led to the great Cossack uprising of 1648.
- The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine — Serhii Plokhy, Basic Books (2015)
- The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999 — Timothy Snyder, Yale University Press (2003)
Why it matters today
The Commonwealth is the golden age Poles look back to: a large, tolerant, self-governing state when most of Europe was ruled by absolute monarchs. It also left Poles with deep ties to Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine, a heritage of Jewish life, and a cautionary tale about how liberty can turn into paralysis.