WI: A Polish-Lithuanian-Moscovite Commonwealth?

How likely is a union between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Grand Duchy of Moscow/early Tsardom of Russia? Boris Godunov and Lew Sapieha were in talks but the former ultimately rejected it.

How would government and religion be impacted if this union came to pass? Could this Commonwealth endure or be short lived?
 
Only way I think it would happen would be situation, where Romanovs dominator PLC to the degree, that they could enforce Romanov prince as monarch of PLC, so late 18th century situation, but with weaker Austrian and Prussian influence, and using French Revolutionary Wars as excuse (Austria beaten by France and needing Russian help would not protest too much).
 

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Getting a Jagellon on the Muscovite throne might be possible during the Time of Troubles, but getting Muscovy into a lasting union or making the Muscovite Jagellons actually last would be even harder.
 
Getting a Jagellon on the Muscovite throne might be possible during the Time of Troubles,

There would be a tiny and quite insignificant problem: the last Jagellonian King of PLC, Sigismund II Augustus, died in 1572, 26 years before the ToT started. :)

You are talking about Wasa dynasty and, yes, it was possible: Prince Wladislaw was officially acknowledged by what was passing at that time as Tsardom's government as a Tsar to Be but neither his father nor himself had been too keen on the precondition, conversion into Orthodoxy, and an idea of having a Catholic Tsar was absolutely unacceptable to the Russian side. Later Wladislaw's attempt to get throne by force (Wladislaw's Moscow Campaign) was doomed if not necessarily militarily (he got all the way to Moscow) then politically (Russia already elected its Orthodox Tsar).

but getting Muscovy into a lasting union or making the Muscovite Jagellons actually last would be even harder.

Religious issue would not go away on both sides.

In the case of the "Russian-centric" union (at some point, prior to the creation of the PLC, Ivan IV got some support of his candidacy among the Lithuanian nobility) there would be an additional problem: difference between absolutism and constitutional monarchy with a weak royal power. How to reconcile it?
 
Only way I think it would happen would be situation, where Romanovs dominator PLC to the degree, that they could enforce Romanov prince as monarch of PLC, so late 18th century situation, but with weaker Austrian and Prussian influence, and using French Revolutionary Wars as excuse (Austria beaten by France and needing Russian help would not protest too much).

The closest thing to this schema was Congress Poland with Constantine as viceroy. You know how well it did work out.
 
Given the large Orthodox population in both Poland (which included Ukraine) and Lithuania (which was mostly Belarus) wouldn't such a Commonwealth be overwhelmingly Orthodox and East Slavic? In short, whoever is put on the throne, it is hard for me to see such a state not eventually becoming "Russia" by another name...
 
The closest thing to this schema was Congress Poland with Constantine as viceroy. You know how well it did work out.
Viceroy is not the same as separate monarch. Dynastic union would be easier to maitain than personal one-one person could not be Catholic and Orthodox at the same time, two members of the same dynasty could.
 
Viceroy is not the same as separate monarch. Dynastic union would be easier to maitain than personal one-one person could not be Catholic and Orthodox at the same time, two members of the same dynasty could.

I said "closest", not "equal" but "dynastic" union hardly would fit the initial premise of XYZ Commonwealth: as soon as the monarchs are different this is an alliance of the different states.
 
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