AHC: Poland to the Urals!

Catholic Slavic nation spanning from Oder to Ural (or even Pacific) is doable if Rus' does not convert to Orthodoxy in 10th century. Slavic languages were very similar to each other at this point so ancestors of Poles and East Slavs could merge. But with such early POD this people would not be Poles (altough could still call themselves Poles) but entirely new Slavic nation.
 
But with such early POD this people would not be Poles (altough could still call themselves Poles) but entirely new Slavic nation.

Yeah, put that way the challenge is easy.

Kievan Polyans form "Poland/Polyanschina", then replicate OTL Rus/sian history :p
 
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I would look for a very early POD.


In my opinion Time of Troubles is definitely too late for a proper merger between Russia and PLC.


While Wladislaw definitely had an opportunity to become Tsar of Russia I think had he managed it there is almost no way he could have become King of Poland. There are simply too many issues - religion is one of the major ones; Russia would not accept a Catholic Tsar, Poland would hardly accept an Orthodox one.


Also by XVII century PLC and Russia had dramatically different institutions – in Russia nobles had very limited power (a situation they almost completely accepted by XVII century) while in PLC they enjoyed “golden liberties”. Even if by some miracle religious issues would be smoothed over, PLC nobles would feel threatened by level of absolutism in Russia while Wladislaw (or whatever Pole would be able to claim Russian throne) would undoubtedly like traditional Russian distribution of powers granting him much MUCH more freedom of action. Even if he would not try to implement similar reforms in PLC-proper (and I think he would at least make an attempt) he definitely under no circumstances would agree to curb his own power in Russia. Thus personal union if created would be extremely unstable and would probably not outlive the first serious crisis.
While there is probably a way for these differences to be mended I don’t really see a plausible variant of such mending.

(This of course does not mean that Wladislaw converting into Orthodoxy does not lead to interesting consequences; it does, possibly even up to Wladislaw getting Grand Duchy of Lithuania or some serious part of it after his father’s death – here I gave a bit more detailed account of what could have happened; but this probably leads to a stronger Russia, not Russia assimilated by Poland).




So I would probably look for POD earlier than mid XVI-century. Even as early as beginning of XVI the respective institutions are already diverging but they are not yet quite so polar. I can provide some justification of this thesis - first quarter of XVI century is the last time there were massive defections of Russian-speaking nobles of GDL to Muscovy thus probably the last point at which the latter’s level of centralization was still acceptable to them.
Compare it to later situation when during Livonian War a threat of becoming Muscovite subjects (and not a guaranteed one; Ivan IV had an upper hand in late 1560s but it was not nearly close to total victory) was so scary to GDL landowners that they were ready to accept very harsh conditions of Union of Lublin.


So probably you are looking for a POD not later than 1530-1540 that either shifts balance of power in Muscovy to much less centralized state or conversely increases royal power in Poland.


But of course while some sort of personal union at this point is very much possible, proper merger of states in such circumstances is much more difficult. Union of Lublin led to a stable state exactly because it was basically signed on Polish terms which was possible because of scary Muscovy threatening to annex substantial part of GDL. In an absence of such threat not only union of Muscovy and Poland would be rather loose, also union of Poland and Lithuania would probably be much more loose in TTL than IOTL.
And massive polonization of population is extremely unlikely in such a scenario (and due to looser union than IOTL even large scale polonization of nobles that happened IOTL in GDL is very much in doubt).




Now I have been talking about personal union but what about outright conquest? In my opinion it is very tricky to achieve when combined with stable union with Lithuania.


While grand princes of Lithuania had several opportunities to subjugate Muscovy and thus basically unite lands of Rus, had they managed to do it they definitely would not be willing to be submerged by Poland and polonized (and by sheer demography Orthodoxy would probably become state religion of GDL). If anything it would extremely strain the relations between Poland and strong GDL that would enjoy relative safety from its neighbors and old feuds over who should control Galicia, Volynia, Podalsie etc. would be brought to surface immediately.




So basically you have to have an early POD in which somebody other than Lithuania screws over Muscovy (and all other contenders to dominance in Grand Principality of Vladimir), is not seen as uniter of Rus Lands and presents an existential threat to Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

If we not willing to go as far back as settling of Slavic tribes, I guess the best variant is uber-Golden Horde.
One could assume that is such a situation happens, people from GDL might be willing to be submerged into Poland on harsh conditions. Later if such TTL PLC would be able to crush wanked uber-Golden Horde (and it is a pretty big if) former lands of Russia that had been devastated by several centuries of nomadic warfare can be recolonized by Poles.

Novgorod would still hardly been destroyed but IOTL Novgorodian was much closer to Polish than Russian and it probably could have been assimilated.


I definitely have a lot of aesthetic difficulties with described scenario but it is aslo rather implausible. If we wank Golden Horde so much why would it choose to crush relatively loyal Grand Principality of Vladimir ( IOTL Moscow was loyal until Golden Horde was severely weakened by civil wars and later Tamerlan; of course if Golden Horde is much more scary this condition could be continued indefinitely)? Why would Khans be willing to attempt depopulating territories that lie in forests completely unsuitable to nomadic way of life and that pay taxes fully and regularly?

No, I guess if Golden Horde is much stronger than IOTL it would keep controlling South-East Rus (OTL Ukraine), would enforce strong vassalage over Grand Princes of Lithuania, would raid Polish plains into submission, would conquer Hungary and settle Pushta, would try to retain control over Balkans, Central Asia, would make and attempt co reconquer Azerbaijan and Arran etc. etc.
Conducting genocide in Grand Principality of Vladimir would have one of the lowest priorities on their list so even such a scenario is probably ASB.



So we are back to times when Slavic tribes did not yet form proto-nations. Could this process have gone differently? Undoubtably. Could all tribes east of Oder form one several enitites that would later be merged into one which language would resemble Polish more than OTL East-Slavic languages? Possibly yes.
But I don’t think it really qualifies as polonization of all these lands.
 
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