Polish Tsar

I've been reading up on Russian history lately, and it has proved ripe ground for alternative history scenarios. Here's a very interesting one I found.

During the Time of Troubles when Muscovy was in total disarray, the boyars were planning to invite Wladyslaw, Crown Prince of Poland-Lithuania, to be Tsar of Muscovy. The idea was that he would eventually rule Muscovy in personal union with Poland-Lithuania. There were of course conditions to the deal- first that the privilieges of the Boyars were to be protected, and second that Wladyslaw vow to uphold Orthodox Christianity. This was later changed to stipulate that he had to convert to Orthodoxy. Eventually Zygmunt Wasa intervened and tried to simply take over Muscovy himself.

However, what if the deal had gone through? Would the people have refused to accept Wladyslaw's rule and thrown him out, or would Polewank have ensued? Would it be a combination of the two.
 
You'd have to change his father's own personality.

Sigismund was a rather devout Catholic, and he coudn't stand the idea of his son converting to Orthodoxy, thus his attempts to install himself as Tsar and convert Russia to Roman Catholicism.
 
Another POD I might suggest is to have Stefan Bathory not die so suddenly, and take Russia himself during the incoming troubles. He was said to have toyed with the idea of Polish-Lithuanian-Muscovite Commonwealth himself.

Regardless, if you can get a Commonwealth ruler on the throne without too much of a big war to upset everybody, for this scenario maybe Wladislaw keeping his catholicism but xnay on any attempts at conversion, you'd probably see a push for a triple commonwealth.

You might actualy find healthy soil for such a concept among the Russian boyars. Ivan the terrible had upset alot of them (and killed quite a few) in his centralisation schemes. Since the troubles were caused after the death of Ivan's last surviving succesor, the reforms are still new enough to be fresh. Thus it'd probably become quite attractive for many boyars to gain the powers their Polish and Lithuanian counterparts had.

One of the avantages for Poland-Lithuania was that such a union guarranteed the massive eastern border from any noticeable threat.

Polish in such a situation would probably become the language of the aristocracy.

If in such a situation the triple commonwealth still falls into the political anarchy/deadlock of OTL, its shere size would still prevent its partition.

Also, such a large state with an elective monarchy would become a HUGE Hapsburg goal. The Hapsburgs coveted the Polish Lithuanian throne of OTL, you can bet they'll desire all the more the throne of a state stretching from the vistula and the black sea to well past the Urals.
 
A Polish king converting from catholicism to orthodoxy would loose huge support in Poland, so I don't think it would be a smart move. Swearing to uphold orthodoxy might work, possibly.

I'm afraid one of the conditions for taking the thorne would be to give the boyars some sort of veto power over the king's decisions, so it might end up in just having a much larger P-L Commonwealth.
Alternatively, it might go the other way around (the czar-king would use his Russian power base to curb the Polish/Lithuanian aristocracy), but then it would be OTL again, with just a different dinasty on the throne.

I would feel that this is overall a good recipe for anarchy, and would play in favor of both the Habsburg and the Ottomans.
 
I think the POD would have to be that the boyars only demand that Wladyslaw uphold Orthodoxy, not convert.

I actually like even more the POD of Stefan Batory not dying and acheiving a personal union with Muscovy, on the price of a guarantee of boyar rights and promise to protect the Orthodox Church. Another possible big benefit for Poland- if Stefan lives longer then he may have children with Anna Jagiellon, which means the Jagiellonian line continues and the magnates' power is less.
 

mowque

Banned
Wouldn't it REALLY lead to a Russian Poland then visa versa? Russia outweighs Poland by alot...
 
Wouldn't it REALLY lead to a Russian Poland then visa versa? Russia outweighs Poland by alot...
At the time, no. Poland-Lithuania was about the same size as Russia/Muscovy. And I mean the European part of Russia; the barren steppe doesn't really count, 'cuz there's really nothing there.
It'd be a fairly equal union, in the 1500's.
 
Yeah, i think after awhile, the polish nobles would have started looking for a way out of the union and maybe a way to get into a bohemian - hungarian union. (no idea how that would come about)

there was a lot of complaining on both sides about the other when it was just poland-lithuania. adding russia would make matters worse.
 

wormyguy

Banned
Poland-Lithuania-Muscovy would be by far the most important polity in the Orthodox world - might that give Wladyslaw the leverage necessary to get the Orthodox bishops, at least in Russia, to reconcile their differences with the Pope, thus rendering the religion question moot?
 
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