WI: Muscovite-Polish-Lithuanian Union happens?

What if the Polish-Lithuanian Union and Muscovy unite in a personal union with Fidor I accepting Polish demands and therefore forming the Triple Union/Polish-Lithuanian-Russian Commonwealth? How long could it survive? Just how powerful would such a state be?
 
What if the Polish-Lithuanian Union and Muscovy unite in a personal union with Fidor I accepting Polish demands and therefore forming the Triple Union/Polish-Lithuanian-Russian Commonwealth? How long could it survive? Just how powerful would such a state be?
The first challenge it would face would be Sweden and Crimea, would would certainly not tolerate this happening. As long as it can stop that, there's nothing that can touch it until the industrial era. The main difference that, as the ruler of Poland, such a country would become involved in western European affairs much sooner and more closely.
 
What if the Polish-Lithuanian Union and Muscovy unite in a personal union with Fidor I accepting Polish demands and therefore forming the Triple Union/Polish-Lithuanian-Russian Commonwealth? How long could it survive? Just how powerful would such a state be?

As in Fyodor I? If it's before the birth of his daughter and that daughter is instead a son, then it could last. However, Russia would be a nation that was recovering from the lengthy Livonian War, Oprichnina devastation, and the Crimean sack of Moscow. Also, the Rurikid succession would be in a similar fashion to the Jagiellonian one, if Fyodor dies without a male heir as in OTL then the whole union is thrown into chaos.

All 3 nations had a strong emphasis on local nobles. In Russia, the boyars were recently returning to an easier existence where they were not forced into two opposing factions, the boyars that comprised parts of the Oprichniki and were favored by Tsar Ivan the Terrible, Fyodor's father and predecessor, and those boyars who were apart of the Zemksi Sabor or assembly of the land. Getting a stable enough succession would be key, as for power the sky seems to be the limit, that it could give the Ottomans a run for their money.

The first challenge it would face would be Sweden and Crimea, would would certainly not tolerate this happening. As long as it can stop that, there's nothing that can touch it until the industrial era. The main difference that, as the ruler of Poland, such a country would become involved in western European affairs much sooner and more closely.

Crimea was rather weak, they could conduct raids and could be beaten by a significant force, like with what happened to Crimea after they managed to sack Moscow in 1571, it would be the Ottomans that would be a problem. The biggest problem would be getting such a state to work, you would have the questions of local nobles, religion, and size to deal with. Russia extended to control most of the Volga River trade with its conquests of Kazan and Astrakhan, it also gave Russia plenty Muslims and ethnic Tatars in their lands.
 
Could this state move toward religious tolerance through decentralization? Local nobles can practice what faith they want? Otherwise I can’t see this lasting for more than two or three monarchs...
 
Could this state move toward religious tolerance through decentralization? Local nobles can practice what faith they want? Otherwise I can’t see this lasting for more than two or three monarchs...
That could be interesting. Russian serfs were tied to the land, so you might see small pockets of different religions forming as Polish or Lithuanian nobles of various faiths (usually Catholic but maybe the occasional Lutheran/Reformed) start to settle there and convert the peasantry. Or I could be completely misunderstanding how religion/serfdom worked. This isn’t really my specialty area.
 
That could be interesting. Russian serfs were tied to the land, so you might see small pockets of different religions forming as Polish or Lithuanian nobles of various faiths (usually Catholic but maybe the occasional Lutheran/Reformed) start to settle there and convert the peasantry. Or I could be completely misunderstanding how religion/serfdom worked. This isn’t really my specialty area.
No. Settlers brought from ethnic Poland my bring some catholicism and protestantism with them (or not, apparently Polish peasants in Ukraine become quickly rutenized rather than polonizing their neighbors). But trying to impose their religion on Russian peasants would imo turn into disaster
 
Could this state move toward religious tolerance through decentralization? Local nobles can practice what faith they want? Otherwise I can’t see this lasting for more than two or three monarchs...
Nobles of PLC could practice whatever religion they wanted since Warsaw Confederation had been signed (as long it was Christian, of course, though there were some Tatar nobles too). With exception, I think, for some anti-trinitarism.
 
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