Sigismund II Augustus embodied the union of Poland and Lithuania, a military alliance powerful enough to fend off the encroachment of Russia on their territory. In 1562, when Ivan the Terrible demonstrated his intention to conquer the Ruthenian lands, including today’s Belarus and Ukraine, this union was about to dissolve into chaos for lack of…
In English, the largest state of early modern east-central Europe is usually called the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Polish and Lithuanian versions mean the Republic of the Two Nations (implicitly – Polish and Lithuanian), but this is a relatively recent usage among historians. This elusively named polit, conventionally dated 1569-1795, is often judged by the fact…
Politics in modern democratic and consensual systems depends on compromise, and yet the ability to compromise is not always seen as a virtue. In an age in which political compromise seems ever more difficult to achieve, the lecture “Towards a history of compromise: comparing political unions in the British Isles and Poland-Lithuania” considers the history…
“Was the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth a failed state?” – a provocative question indeed! The three partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth – in 1772, 1793 and 1795 – seem to support the narrative that this ‘failed state’ was put out of its misery by its better governed neighbors – the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and…
In the mid sixteenth century, there were many parallels between the political cultures of Poland-Lithuania and the kingdoms of the British Isles. Both saw thinkers, inspired by the ideals of Renaissance civic humanism, challenge more traditional currents of thought deriving from scholasticism and pride in ancient constitutions. Across the British Isles and Poland-Lithuania there were…
The Centre for Polish-Lithuanian Studies was opened just before the Covid crisis hit. This has disrupted our activities, but we constructing our website, and are planning activities for the next academic year. The Centre will be hosting two visiting scholars in the autumn, Dr Karol Żojdź, from the Centre for the History of Medieval and…
