polish-lithuanian commonwealth

During the first stage of the Polish-Ottoman War of 1672-1676, the Ottomans gained Poland as a tributary vassal state very briefly for a few months. After Michael I's death and the military successes of Sobieski, this was reversed and Poland only sent one tributary mission to Constantinople as a...

Novgorod and its surrounding regions had a distinct history from the rest of Russia until fairly recently in the grand scheme of things. Until the fall of the Republic of Novgorod in 1478 its political institutions were drastically different from the ones found further south, as a Merchant...

A long time ago someone commented on a map-art that I made that asked me why I hated Poland so much. Which stuck with me because I didn't have any strong feelings towards Poland but looking back to the gallery I made it did seem that Poland always get the short end of the stick. I chalked this...

Let's say that enough nobles in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth convert to Calvinism to the point where they're officially a protestant state and aid the anti-Habsburg uprisings in Hungary. What would their relationship be with each other and neighboring states? Would Hungary be an...

In original timeline, during the Time of Troubles in Russia after the extinction of the Rurikid Dynasty, a man claiming to be the lost son of Ivan the Terrible, Dmitriy Ivanovich (Who died when he was eight years old) came to the throne thanks to military assistance from the Polish-Lithuanian...

So, we're all familiar with the Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. If not, to overgeneralize it, the Partitions of Poland is when the powers of the Russian Empire, Kingdom of Prussia, and the Habsburg Monarchy divided the once mighty Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on three...

Hello all, So, Lithuania was a powerful realm in its heyday. Mindagaus -- the first Duke and later King of Lithuania -- fought and won many wars against Christian forces, defeating Polish and Crusader enemies and conquering land from the Baltic into Ruthenia. However, though Mindagaus was a...

Assuming Sigismund II Augustus has a son or two and Russia goes through the Time of Troubles like IOTL, could a member of the Jagiellonian dynasty win the support of enough Russian boyars to become Tsar? IIRC Wladyslaw Vasa had at least a few supporters IOTL, but Sigismund III's...

Could Ivan IV, tsar of Russia, somehow be elected king of Poland and grand Duke of Lithuania after Sigismund II's death in 1572? Assuming the answer is yes, could such an union spark a war in Eastern Europe? I doubt states like Sweden, the Habsburg dominions and the Ottoman Empire would like...

While Habsburg on the throne does not need to mean, that internal situation of PLC is drastically different (although to some degree it certainly would) foreign policy of PLC and its neighbors would certainly change grom the very beginning of Habsburg rule (which must start early after creation...

Ramadan 742 ( February 1342) Sarai, Khanate of the Golden horde sigh of relief Tini Beg was tensed the entire night, not knowing whether the harbingers of death will bring him good news. Perhaps Allah knows what's best and he should quit being a scaredy-cat. This morning he'll finally see the...

As the title says, the challenge is make the Kingdom of Poland or Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth under the Hapsburg dynasty. What would be the butterfly effects of Hapsburg Poland or Hapsburg Polish-Lithuania?

Assuming Poland-Lithuania manages to pull a Capet and gradually normalize the idea of hereditary succession (much like what happened in the HRE for the Habsburgs), and centralize into more of a united state, what would be the geopolitical ramifications of such an entity of a centralized...

Prussia loses the Seven Years' War and is practically dismembered. Silesia goes to the Habsburgs, Cottbus to Saxony, much of Pommerania with Stettin to Sweden and East Prussia to Russia, who trades it for Kurland&Semigalia with the PLC. In such circumstances, what could await the PLC in the...

How could Poland be kept as a place of safety and tolerance for the Jews?

Actually, my best timeline will get running soon... The Eagle and the Knight or How could I learn to save Byzantium Part I - Splintering Troubles and the Rebuild In the beginning, Ottoman Interregnum began to splinter apart as it starts to rip apart with Musa Çelebi's forces began to win in...

Lipka Tatars are a very interesting historical ethnic group. First made up of pagan Tatars fleeing Islamization in late Middle Ages, then subsumed by Muslim Tatars, the Lipka Tatars settled in what is now Belarus, Poland and Lithuania. Though for a long time they served as a military cast and...

Let's say the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth survive and they have a decent Navy Would they want to be in on the Scramble for Africa?

Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, probably the most influential Pole at the time advocated for the inclusion of the Polish freedom in the Treaty of Paris from the very start of the war (and even suggested a Anglo-French alliance against Russia at the beginning of the year), but his suggestion fell on deaf...

The Deluge in Poland and Lithuania, which was a crisis period extending from the early 1650's to the early 1660's, saw the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth be invaded on all sides by Sweden, Russia, the Cossacks, Brandenburg (to a small extent), and the Duke of Transylvania. There were also some...