Challenge- can you replace Russia with Poland?

Perhaps a PoD as far back as the Poland-Lithuania Commonwealth? Can Poland end up subsuming Russia, and if so does it move east past the Urals and expand "Manifest Destiny"-like across Siberia? Is this possible? Poland, despite its reputation as being the place armies cross constantly, did however when it was independent always did try to go east and conquer more territory at the expense of White Russia and Ruthenia/Ukraine (even in the post war period of 1918-1923). If Poland did become the alternate Russia, does history rhyme as far as extent of empire in the East? Even as far as intervention in China, war with a rising Japan, great power status, Great Game Central Asia against Britain, and how does this affect things like Napoleon, WWI, German unification, and World War I?
 
Well, there was the famous effort by the Poles to put a pretender on the Russian throne; but I suspect that, even if it had succeeded, you wouldn't have seen the Poles totally fold Russia into their own domain.

So, lets go a slightly different track: Lets say that the kibosh gets put on Muscovy. There was a good deal of conflict between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Muscovy and several invasions of the later by the former. Lets say that Lithuania gets lucky, totally destroys the Muscovy army and burns the city. Muscovy does into decline and never really recovers.

Now, when the Khanate crumbles, rather than having a strong Moscow to move into the power vacuum, you've got nothing; Russia becomes a hodgepodge of warring duchies and city-states. Novgorod is probably the strongest and might be able to form some kind of hegemony over the northern Russian states, but doesn't move into the interior.

Now, we've probably butterflied away a union of the Polish and Lithuanian crowns here (although I suppose Lithuania would be even more likely to convert and seek an alliance with Poland, since it can't play Poland and Russia off of each other, and still has the Teutonic Order to worry about). So that goes either way: either you still have a merging of Poland and Lithuania, or possibly Poland seeks permission from the Pope and launches a northern crusade against the Lithuanians. Either way, Poland comes into that territory.

With nothing to the east but fragmented duchies, Poland would probably seem to move into these Russian lands, especially those along the Baltic and its river ways.

So I think that Poland would ever move past the Urals (or even get that far?) Probably not; I doubt it has the population to really do so. But I think it might be able to gain control of modern day Ukraine, Belarus, and much of European northern Russia.

How strong would its control over the population be? Hard to say. The religious differences are going to be sever, plus just the general size of the realm. However, I could see the nobility becoming Polonized as the Lithuanian (and parts of the Ukrainian) nobility were in OTL.

Any thoughts?
 
Well, there was the famous effort by the Poles to put a pretender on the Russian throne; but I suspect that, even if it had succeeded, you wouldn't have seen the Poles totally fold Russia into their own domain.

So, lets go a slightly different track: Lets say that the kibosh gets put on Muscovy. There was a good deal of conflict between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Muscovy and several invasions of the later by the former. Lets say that Lithuania gets lucky, totally destroys the Muscovy army and burns the city. Muscovy does into decline and never really recovers.

Now, when the Khanate crumbles, rather than having a strong Moscow to move into the power vacuum, you've got nothing; Russia becomes a hodgepodge of warring duchies and city-states. Novgorod is probably the strongest and might be able to form some kind of hegemony over the northern Russian states, but doesn't move into the interior.

Now, we've probably butterflied away a union of the Polish and Lithuanian crowns here (although I suppose Lithuania would be even more likely to convert and seek an alliance with Poland, since it can't play Poland and Russia off of each other, and still has the Teutonic Order to worry about). So that goes either way: either you still have a merging of Poland and Lithuania, or possibly Poland seeks permission from the Pope and launches a northern crusade against the Lithuanians. Either way, Poland comes into that territory.

With nothing to the east but fragmented duchies, Poland would probably seem to move into these Russian lands, especially those along the Baltic and its river ways.

So I think that Poland would ever move past the Urals (or even get that far?) Probably not; I doubt it has the population to really do so. But I think it might be able to gain control of modern day Ukraine, Belarus, and much of European northern Russia.

How strong would its control over the population be? Hard to say. The religious differences are going to be sever, plus just the general size of the realm. However, I could see the nobility becoming Polonized as the Lithuanian (and parts of the Ukrainian) nobility were in OTL.

Any thoughts?

Wouldn't that Polonization lead to more of a Cossack-type reaction kn a grand scale? Cause the Cossacks were the option to turn to for protection when the nobles went Catholic and such, if I believe my heavily Slavic grandmother. :p
 
There was a good deal of conflict between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Muscovy and several invasions of the later by the former. Lets say that Lithuania gets lucky, totally destroys the Muscovy army and burns the city. Muscovy does into decline and never really recovers.

Now, when the Khanate crumbles, rather than having a strong Moscow to move into the power vacuum, you've got nothing; Russia becomes a hodgepodge of warring duchies and city-states. Novgorod is probably the strongest and might be able to form some kind of hegemony over the northern Russian states, but doesn't move into the interior.

Now, we've probably butterflied away a union of the Polish and Lithuanian crowns here
So far I pretty much agree with you. I mean from my point of view this scenario seems quite plausible.
Well, maybe my correction is that that strong Lithuania won't wait for the Khanate to crumble. The Lithuanians were successful against the Golden Horde at it's peak of power in OTL.
In this ATL victorious Lithuania would snatch all Russia from the Golden Horde.

(although I suppose Lithuania would be even more likely to convert and seek an alliance with Poland, since it can't play Poland and Russia off of each other, and still has the Teutonic Order to worry about). So that goes either way:
But here I don't quite agree with you.
I mean Lithuania does convert in this ATL.
But you definitely have in mind converting to Catholicism.
I am of the opinion that having conquered even more 'Russian' Orthodox population than in OTL, Lithuania would have even more incentive to convert to Orthodoxy in this ATL. That seems almost unavoidable.

So what we would have in this ATL:
huge, strong Lithuania including OTL Moscovia - an ocean of Slavic Orthodox population and a tiny layer of the Lithuanian Orthodox ruling elite.
I guess in a generation or two the Lithuanian elite would speak Russian and gets heavily Russified, Russianized.
So that will be Russia but with a slight flavor of Lithuania. :)
 
I'd have my doubts about a declining Muscovy simply because by the time Muscovy and Lithuania went to war, Muscovy was basically the strongest Russian principality so I doubt it would go into a decline after all it did survive sacking's before and afterwards.

The problem with trying to shoehorn Poland to do everything Russia did, is that why would Poland want to go expand so far east, especially through Russian proxies. Hell even going with something happening in the Time of Troubles, thats still when the Russia had extensive territories eastwards. Not to mention could Catholic Poland deal with even a larger population of Orthodox Russians and a new population of Muslim Tatars.
 
I don't think Poland would take up the mantle for population, cultural and religious reasons.

Russian had the population and numbers of Orthodox to outnumbered the other relgious and cultural groups.

I could see Poland taking the Baltic States, Belarus and parts of the Ukraine but I think Novgored would take the northern mantle in modern-day Finland and the northern parts of European Russian, possibly Estonia.

Possibly a Tartar state emerges without any nearby power Strong. enough to absorb them. For the remaining Russian duchys/city-states I think they would end up as vessels that swap around between Greater Pop and and Greater Novgorod with both powers trying to keep them divided and from uniting.
 
Doubtful. A hyper-Poland-Lithuania has the Ukrainian steppes to settle anyway, once it displaces the Turkic peoples there. It would probably have an easy grasp on the lands Poland-Lithuania OTL held at its greatest extent, and definitely be the hegemon over the rest of the Russian states (Muscovy might not even rise to any sort of power if your POD is Mongol Invasion or so, it could be Tver or another regional state in that area), but I don't think they'd particularly want to expand much there unless they got the chance. Much more likely they'd want to counter their traditional rivals like Bohemia or any newer rival like a Scandinavian or German state. Russia was never a particularly wealthy land anyway. Beyond the Russian states, you have states like Sibir and Kazan, who would profit immensely without the troubles of the Russian states. And incidentally, even less of a reason for Poland-Lithuania to waste their time.

Even if they did annex ALL of the Russian states, Siberia wouldn't be Polish speaking, it would be Russian-speaking and settled by Russians, because (Orthodox) Russian settlers would be the ones settling the Siberian steppes and forests. And inevitably at some point, you'd have a rebellion led by some Cossack-type group, and since the distance would be MUCH further from the Polish-Lithuanian heartland, they'd have a good shot at winning and would probably create an independent principality somewhere in Siberia.

So no, no way could Poland-Lithuania ever hold the same land as the Russian Empire at its greatest expanse or anywhere near it.
 
The Polish captured Moscow in 1610 during the Polish-Muscovite War 1609 - 1618. However they lost the city in 1611 during a popular uprising.

We can have the Poles doing better during this war, defeating and significantly weakening Muscovy wjhich fils to resolve the Time of Troubles. Michel Romanov gets himself killed in a skirmish and nobody else proves able to become Tsar. With chaos in Russia Poland is able to dominate Ukraine and, although Commonwealth forces are unable/unwilling to hold on to Moscow they are able to exert a degree of political influence in Muscovy for at least the next few decades Meanwhile Poland is able to strenthen her hold over the Ukraine through alliances with the Cossacks.

While Muscovy still exists as a state it remains weak and divided well into the 17th Century delaying the rise of Russia
 
I think that for this to happen you would need both Sweden and Poland-Lithuania to do better against the Russian states.

Had Sigismund III not attempted to take the Russian throne for himself and left his son as head then the pro-Polish faction that was able to tolerate his rule. Not saying that he still wouldn't be ousted, but the pro-Polish faction was very important.

The Novgorrodians had asked the Swedish king at the time to have one of his sons (likely Gustavus Adolphus since he became king shorter after) to be installed as their own monarch, those lands were given up in the treaty of Stolbovo.

Would the English and Dutch (who acted as mediators during the Ingrian war) try to do anything during this supposed collapse of Russia?
 
The Novgorrodians had asked the Swedish king at the time to have one of his sons (likely Gustavus Adolphus since he became king shorter after) to be installed as their own monarch, those lands were given up in the treaty of Stolbovo.
More details on this? Seems interesting.
 
More details on this? Seems interesting.

I haven't been able to find much information on this. The Novgordians submitted to Swedish troops led by Jacob De la Gardie in 1611. He attempted to put Charles Philip (brother of the new Swedish King) but both the king and mother refused to let the ten year old go to Russia. Not only due to his age but also because Gustav didn't believe that the Russians of Novgorod were being serious in their offer.
He did leave for Viborg in 1613 but by then the Zemsky Sobor already elected a new Tsar.
 
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