Poland: From Sea to Shining Sea - Is it possible for it to take the place of Russia?

I suspect replacing Grazdanka with Latin Alphabet and educating it to the illiterate masses of Ruthenia could help closing the linguistic gap. Make the languages at least mutually understandable.

This calls for a late POD, where Poland is actually more literate than Russia, so that only leaves you the Time of Troubles as an opening.
 

MSZ

Banned
And again, how are you doing this?

Incorporating *Russia as a part of the Commonwealth would be a staggering task, you're asking for PL to dominate it for this to work.

I don't know if that's even close to possible.

No doubt it would it would be a difficult task. Even OTL had Polish nobility opposed to it, pointing out that forming the PLC took almost 200 years, going from personal union to real union. Doing the same to all of Muscovy would require even more time.

On the other hand, Poland DID manage to bring Lithuania into a Commonwealth, ultimately. So hypothetically it could do the same to Muscovy. Weaken central power of Muscovy, strengthen that of Poland. Introduce religious tolerance to Russia. Perhaps if a Jagiellon present at the throne of both Poland and Muscovy (or maybe various Russian principalities) modern nationalism could kick in in the XIX century, giving us a different Pan-Slavism.

As for introducing Latin alphabet to the population - simply keep grazdanka in the orthodox churches (like latin in catholic) and have decrees/laws/documents presented to the population written using latin alphabet. Have it taught in schools as well. I'm not talking to replace russian with polish, just replace the alphabets which in the XVII most people didn't know anyway.
 
No doubt it would it would be a difficult task. Even OTL had Polish nobility opposed to it, pointing out that forming the PLC took almost 200 years, going from personal union to real union. Doing the same to all of Muscovy would require even more time.

On the other hand, Poland DID manage to bring Lithuania into a Commonwealth, ultimately. So hypothetically it could do the same to Muscovy. Weaken central power of Muscovy, strengthen that of Poland. Introduce religious tolerance to Russia. Perhaps if a Jagiellon present at the throne of both Poland and Muscovy (or maybe various Russian principalities) modern nationalism could kick in in the XIX century, giving us a different Pan-Slavism.

The PLC was voluntary and mutual. You're merging Russia into a country that it doesn't want to be merged into.

As for introducing Latin alphabet to the population - simply keep grazdanka in the orthodox churches (like latin in catholic) and have decrees/laws/documents presented to the population written using latin alphabet. Have it taught in schools as well. I'm not talking to replace russian with polish, just replace the alphabets which in the XVII most people didn't know anyway.

And how are you going to replace the alphabet of the Russian language when the alphabet not being Latin has been in place for a very long time and the people are used to it? (sure most Russians may be illiterate, but they won't appreciate the difference, so you're dealing with those who resent you messing with the language).
 
I'm not an expert in Polish history but I would still like to point out that Poland expanding to east might cause even more problems for Poles if they don't centralize their system more.
 

MSZ

Banned
The PLC was voluntary and mutual. You're merging Russia into a country that it doesn't want to be merged into.



And how are you going to replace the alphabet of the Russian language when the alphabet not being Latin has been in place for a very long time and the people are used to it? (sure most Russians may be illiterate, but they won't appreciate the difference, so you're dealing with those who resent you messing with the language).

I sincerely hope some polish members here could be of aid. I do not know what the political climate was during the signing of the 1569 union, but I doubt it was “sunshine and flowers” happy voluntary union – and even if it was, it would most likely be due to the Lithuanian nobles being granted additional benefits and wealth. Why wouldn’t the Russian boyars accept a union in return for more power and money for them? OTL you had Russians offering the Crown voluntarily, so the “doesn't want to be merged into” part certainly isn’t a Great Patriotic Anti-Polish Movement, universally supported by all Orthodox peoples.

As for the Alphabet – how can they be used to something they don’t understand? It’s hard to imagine what it means to be illiterate, but to those who, letters are simply signs. Do you know the Far Eastern Alphabets? I don’t, I can’t tell the difference between Japanese and Chinese, if I was to learn their Alphabet (not language) it wouldn’t matter to me if the sign used to symbolize “the sound of the letter S” is S or C.

Like I said - it would be difficult. But such empires did exist OTL, Poland and Russia may as well form one as well.
 
I sincerely hope some polish members here could be of aid. I do not know what the political climate was during the signing of the 1569 union, but I doubt it was “sunshine and flowers” happy voluntary union – and even if it was, it would most likely be due to the Lithuanian nobles being granted additional benefits and wealth. Why wouldn’t the Russian boyars accept a union in return for more power and money for them? OTL you had Russians offering the Crown voluntarily, so the “doesn't want to be merged into” part certainly isn’t a Great Patriotic Anti-Polish Movement, universally supported by all Orthodox peoples.

It was certainly two states where both parties voluntarily chose to accept the union, based on what they saw as benefits. Sunshine and flowers? No. Annexation? Also no.

Its not a "Great Patriotic Anti-Polish Movement", its a "We don't want to be subject to foreign law and foreign rule." A Commonwealth ruler who has to accept the customs and traditions of Russia is one thing, a Commonwealth ruler trying to change those is another.

And trying to fit Russia into the commonwealth as a vassal (as someone else said) is definitely not the same thing.

And of course, the Orthodox issue is a problem.

Its not so much supported by all Orthodox people as problematic enough to be too much of a strain for a state like the Commonwealth to handle.

As for the Alphabet – how can they be used to something they don’t understand? It’s hard to imagine what it means to be illiterate, but to those who, letters are simply signs. Do you know the Far Eastern Alphabets? I don’t, I can’t tell the difference between Japanese and Chinese, if I was to learn their Alphabet (not language) it wouldn’t matter to me if the sign used to symbolize “the sound of the letter S” is S or C.

Like I said - it would be difficult. But such empires did exist OTL, Poland and Russia may as well form one as well.

Speaking as someone fluent in the Latin alphabet, I can recognize the difference between it and Cyrillic. So would those looking at it from the reverse, which are the only ones to who written documents mean anything.

Such empires as this unholy blob? Did any of them last for very long?
 
I sincerely hope some polish members here could be of aid. I do not know what the political climate was during the signing of the 1569 union, but I doubt it was “sunshine and flowers” happy voluntary union – and even if it was, it would most likely be due to the Lithuanian nobles being granted additional benefits and wealth. Why wouldn’t the Russian boyars accept a union in return for more power and money for them? OTL you had Russians offering the Crown voluntarily, so the “doesn't want to be merged into” part certainly isn’t a Great Patriotic Anti-Polish Movement, universally supported by all Orthodox peoples.

As for the Alphabet – how can they be used to something they don’t understand? It’s hard to imagine what it means to be illiterate, but to those who, letters are simply signs. Do you know the Far Eastern Alphabets? I don’t, I can’t tell the difference between Japanese and Chinese, if I was to learn their Alphabet (not language) it wouldn’t matter to me if the sign used to symbolize “the sound of the letter S” is S or C.

Like I said - it would be difficult. But such empires did exist OTL, Poland and Russia may as well form one as well.
Indeed, it's not even as different as say Mandarin or Japanese is, the Russian alphabet, based on the Greek, uses letters like Latin, so it would be easier to adapt another alphabet. In China, they have adopted the latin alphabet in the form of pinying, in order to show the phonetics of words (as there is no alphabet in China or Japan), I believe Vietnam and a bunch of other languages use latin too. So to imagine a Russia in which Latin is used is not a stretch of the imagination...
 
Indeed, it's not even as different as say Mandarin or Japanese is, the Russian alphabet, based on the Greek, uses letters like Latin, so it would be easier to adapt another alphabet. In China, they have adopted the latin alphabet in the form of pinying, in order to show the phonetics of words (as there is no alphabet in China or Japan), I believe Vietnam and a bunch of other languages use latin too. So to imagine a Russia in which Latin is used is not a stretch of the imagination...

Imagining a Russia that accepts the use of Latin when it has a perfectly servicable alphabet of its own and no great fondness for being forced to adopt foreign ways is a bit much, though.

Its not impossible, but there would need to be a good reason for it.
 
Imagining a Russia that accepts the use of Latin when it has a perfectly servicable alphabet of its own and no great fondness for being forced to adopt foreign ways is a bit much, though.

Its not impossible, but there would need to be a good reason for it.

Eh, it's been done, though generally later in history (Romania used Cyrillic until the 1860s).

This however:

MSZ said:
Why wouldn’t the Russian boyars accept a union in return for more power and money for them? OTL you had Russians offering the Crown voluntarily, so the “doesn't want to be merged into” part certainly isn’t a Great Patriotic Anti-Polish Movement, universally supported by all Orthodox peoples.

Yet that's what the Second Opolcheniye ended up being, in the end.

I think you have to realise that the Polish state has NO MEANS of granting the small nobility or gentry servicemen anything more than they already have, and that the Russian Great Nobles have generally been thoroughly broken compared to Polish and Lithuanian magnates. As witnessed by the reigns of False Dmitriy, Shuiskiy, and the Seven Boyars, the Great Nobles of Russia could hardly hold on to the country, much less control it.

Their rule, and that of the Intervention, was ended by a movement led by a petty noble and a wealthy merchant. Russia's lower estates had much greater participation in the consensus of running Russia than PLC's lower estates.

This is almost damning to the Russians given how things turned out, but any 1600s PLC-Russia union will need to win the hearts and minds (and purses) of MANY many MANY Russians, as opposed to just a few Great Nobles (who were the one sector who could really benefit from PLC rule, and did historically try to capitalise on it).

Or to put it another way: Russia's early centralisation and modernisation actually hindered its plasticity in the following centuries. There's a very strong parallel to the Ottomans, and for good reason. They had trouble reforming too.

EDIT: And this is not to speak about Siberian "free settlers", or Russia's client/allies in the Steppes, or the Cossacks. How would a PLC-Russia deal with the inevitable Bolotnikovs, Razins and Pugachevs (who will be based on the Volga/Ural), when they already had trouble with the Khmelnitskys and Bohuns in Ukraine?
 
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Poland-Lithuania wasn't all that voluntary, there was some resistance from Lithuanians. Also, it needs to be considered that if you back far enough, the gap between the number of Poles and the number of velikirussians isn't there. Between Pomors, central Russians, Byelorussians, Ukrainians, Ruthenians, and the likes, a common "Russian" identity may never get the chance to form. Sure, they may consider themselves Rus, but that doesn't mean someone from Novgorod would consider themselves kin to someone from Smolensk or Samara. The Poles would just be another slav. And it wouldn't be hard to have Polish become the "prestige" language of the Slavs, like French was in the west. But the deciding factor is if the Rus can shake off their Greek-rite Christianity in favor of Catholicism. Considering that there were many times in history where that bond was tenuous, that shouldn't be too difficult either.
 
Poland-Lithuania wasn't all that voluntary, there was some resistance from Lithuanians. Also, it needs to be considered that if you back far enough, the gap between the number of Poles and the number of velikirussians isn't there.

How far back? I think that a lot of the regionalist-identity interpretation is VERY late. In Ukraine, certainly not before Cossack free states. In Belarus, probably 20th c.

The whole Krivians->Ruthenians->NOT RUSSIANS is just not borne out in the literature, sorry.

Between Pomors, central Russians, Byelorussians, Ukrainians, Ruthenians, and the likes, a common "Russian" identity may never get the chance to form. Sure, they may consider themselves Rus, but that doesn't mean someone from Novgorod would consider themselves kin to someone from Smolensk or Samara. The Poles would just be another slav.

The Poles weren't "Another Slav" already in the 12th c. They were quite distinctly Poles, different from both "Slavs" and "Rus". "Rus" as a common idea is fairly old, again, 12th and 13th c. documents already confidently name what "Rus" is. Poland isn't mentioned, naturally.

But the deciding factor is if the Rus can shake off their Greek-rite Christianity in favor of Catholicism. Considering that there were many times in history where that bond was tenuous, that shouldn't be too difficult either.

It's an intriguing possibility, but when exactly are those times you're referring to? The Uniate Church is the only one I can think of, and it wasn't the most resounding success.

I do want to make this Triple Slavdom work, I just want to do this honestly and without too much wishful thinking.
 
Sure, they may consider themselves Rus, but that doesn't mean someone from Novgorod would consider themselves kin to someone from Smolensk or Samara. The Poles would just be another slav.
Someone from Novgorod would consider themselves kin to someone from Smolensk or Samara as long as they all are orthodox Christians.

For the Russians of the discussed period the red line between 'us and them' - was Orthodoxy.

You could be a Tartar with distinctively Mongoloid appearance or some red-headed Scottish fella: as long as you are an Orthodox, live in Russia, speak some more or less understandable language - you are 'us'.
If you are a pure 100% Russian from bloodline parentage 'genetic' point of view but you are not Orthodox, well, sorry, but you are 'them'. And 'them' means alien, hostile, an enemy, a threat.
And if you had been an Orthodox and then you converted to other religion you are a traitor, Judas, a rat.


The Uniate Church is the only one I can think of, and it wasn't the most resounding success.
Exactly.
My granddad was not a religious person at all. He was a Belorussian where there was some Uniate Church historically.
When he was very drunk (which was not too often) he used to swear at some people who deserved a slow and painful death. And he used the most hideous abhorrent swearword, foul term: 'Uniate':D. And it did not have anything to do with religion. The meaning was - 'very-very-very-very bad'.

He never used this word when he was sober because it was too strong swearing. And he was a nice person, well, mostly.:)
 
Hey Overlord! I have actually been working out to the kinks to this very question!

The anti-Habsburgs successfully prevent the marriage between Sigismund III Vasa and Anne of Austria, leading Sigismund to marry a Swede two or three years down the line. This doesn't necessarily butterfly the War Against Sigismund, but tilts the war far more in his favor as more nobles would see him as legitimate. This would later be known as the Commonwealth Civil War, and would strengthen the bond between the Poland-Lithuania and Sweden, politically and possibly even religiously.

Down the line, the Commonwealth would go to war with Russia as it did IOTL during the Time of Troubles. The Commonwealth-Muscovite War would be far more successful for the far more powerful Commonwealth and would ultimately lead to the annexation of the Tsardom of Russia into the Commonwealth.

Notes: Polish would stay neutral in the ATL 30 Years war to consolidate its gains. Without Sweden in the mix, the Catholics may win. This will lead to a bipolar world, with the Commonwealth on one side and the Hapsburgs on the other.
Gustavus Adolophus would not be a leader of Sweden.

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