In Our Time - The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Episode Date: October 14, 2021

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the republic that emerged from the union of the Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 14th Century. At first this was a personal union, similar to that of James I and VI in Britain, but this was formalised in 1569 into a vast republic, stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Kings and princes from across Europe would compete for parliament to elect them King and Grand Duke, and the greatest power lay with the parliaments. When the system worked well, the Commonwealth was a powerhouse, and it was their leader Jan Sobieski who relieved the siege of Vienna in 1683, defeating the Ottomans. Its neighbours exploited its parliament's need for unanimity, though, and this contributed to its downfall. Austria, Russia and Prussia divided its territory between them from 1772, before the new, smaller states only emerged in the 20th Century. The image above is Jan III Sobieski (1629-1696), King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, at the Battle of Vienna 1683, by Marcello Bacciarelli (1731-1818)With Robert Frost The Burnett Fletcher Chair of History at the University of AberdeenKatarzyna Kosior Lecturer in Early Modern History at Northumbria UniversityAndNorman Davies Professor Emeritus in History and Honorary Fellow of St Antony’s College, University of OxfordProducer: Simon Tillotson

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time. There's a reading list to go with it on our website, and you can get news about our programs if you follow us on Twitter at BBC In Our Time. I hope you enjoyed the programs. Hello, in the 16th and 17th centuries, much of Europe was struggling under religious wars and civil wars, but not the largest state in Europe.

The Commonwealth of Poland, Lithuania, stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea, where the kings were elected and with Parliament ruled over peoples of many cultures and many beliefs. This was in great contrast to its neighbours, and by the 18th century, Austria, Russia and Prussia were the absolute rulers vied to exploit weaknesses in this Republic's constitution, and they eventually carved it up between them. With me to discuss the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, a Robert Frost, the Bernard Fletcher Chair in History at the University of Aberdeen, Katzina Koshio, lecturer in early modern history at Northumbria University, and Norman Davis, Professor Emeritus in History and Honorary Fellow of St. Antonis College University of Oxford.

Norman Davis, how and when was Poland first united with Lithuania? 1385, i.e. the late 14th century, that's the period in English history of the 100 years war, and in Eastern Europe of Moscow's subjection to the Golden Horde, the Mongol Horde, the Tata Yoke, and of course, Tamil. Poland and Lithuania were joined together to counter the threat of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, who were a pretty predatory bunch and who were threatening both countries. And the Union was sealed by the marriage of the Grand Duke, Jagieu, of Lithuania, and the child queen of Poland, Yadviga, launching the Yagielan dynasty.

In due course, Poland-Lithuania conquered and broke up the Teutonic state, and the Duchy of Prussia became a Polish fief. Incidentally, the Polish-Lithuanian Union lasted for 410 years in all, which considerably exceeds the duration of England's Union with Scotland. Can you describe the land covered by this state? I'll try. It was enormous, more or less a million kilometres squared. The Kingdom of Poland alone, at its greatest, contained the whole of what we now call Ukraine

and controlled both royal and ducal Prussia, was larger than France or Germany. And the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to the east, at its largest, was still bigger than that, stretching, as you said, from the Baltic to the Black Sea. In the time of the Commonwealth from the mid-16th century, the largest chunk of the Grand Duchy was what we now know as Belarus, plus, of course, ethnic Lithuania in the north, and various bits and pieces like the Duchy of Coorland in modern Latvia.

The trouble is most of these far-flung lands were later absorbed either by Germany or especially by Russia, and few people have a mental map to recognise the former setup. The original capital of this Commonwealth Republic was in Krakow, in the, southwest, but it moved to Warsaw, which is now, of course, in the eastern part of Poland, but in former times was right in the centre. Can you give us some quick description of the range of peoples living there? Poland and Lithuania are very different from today. So in the kingdom of Poland, there were ethnic Poles,

There were a lot of Germans. There were Ruthenians, i.e. Belarusians and Ukrainians. There were Tartas in the south. A large community of Jews. In the Grand Dutch of Lithuania, there were the Baltic peoples, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, a big chunk of Belarusians, and one or two more besides. Was there any way in which there was a common language, Norman, as well as their own languages? The common language of the Kingdom of Poland was Latin, as in Hungary or indeed the Holy Roman Empire.

The common language in the Grand Duch of Lithuania was old Ruski, an old Belarusian. But from 1600 onwards, Polish became established as the language of government, and the extent of Polishness is greatly increased. Thank you very much. Robert Frost, can you just give us a bit more detail here? How did that personal union become something more like a Commonwealth in 1569? And why did it call itself a Commonwealth? That's the $64,000 question. It came about because of a particular political vision,

a vision of politics that appealed across this multi-ethnic, multi-religious Commonwealth. It shouldn't have worked. If you look at political unions in medieval Europe, you have the Scandinavian Union of Kalmar, and yet the Kalmar Union fell apart after a century or so. But the Polish-Lithuanian Union worked, despite the fact that you had Slavic peoples, you had the Poles who were Catholic,

You had the Ruthenians, the inhabitants of modern Belarus and Ukraine, who spoke Ruthenian, the ancestor of those two languages, and were orthodox in religion. And the Lithuanians were the last pagan state in Europe. So it shouldn't have worked. These were people who were culturally different, there were religious differences. And yet, over the course of the period between 1386 when the Union began and 1569, when they created the Commonwealth of the two nations,

as they called it. These peoples grew together around a political vision, and that vision was Republican. Now, there were pragmatic reasons for getting together. Norman mentioned earlier on the threat to the pagan Lithuanians from the Teutonic Knights.

Well, part of the union was that the pagan Lithuanians agreed Yogaila, Yaghewa, the Grand Duke who married Yadviga, they agreed to become Roman Canaan. It was a vital moment in European history. And I think he did so to preserve that separate Lithuanian state in a union. And for the next century and a half, the Yagilonians, the Yagelon dynasty played off their hereditary rights in Lithuania against the elective monarchy in Poland.

Because the polls said, we chose you. We elected you. Therefore, you and your family have no hereditary rights to Poland. And this was the basis for the creation of a political system built from below. It was a republic. And they start using that term res publica republic from the early 15th century. Was there a sense in which one of these powers dominated the entire time? Did the balance keep tilting from one to the other? The balance kept tilting.

Now, at the start of the Union, the Poles couldn't dominate or rule Lithuania. and over the course of time, the two cultures grew together partly because of the church, the Catholic Church, because it was largely staffed from the outset, initially at least, by Poles. And then, because the Poles constructed this system from below, they introduced local, they called them Seemiques, Little Parliaments, Diatines, and the King had to agree that he wouldn't call out the noble levy, the main defensive organisation, unless he had the agreement of the diatines. A central parliament then emerged. If we can move to Katasina,

there were parliaments, the re-elected kings, how far was this out of step with what other European states were doing and their ideas of sovereignty? It was very much out of step. As Robert mentioned, the elective monarchy was established. First, the Aguilonians managed to get themselves elected

and re-elected time and again. But when the last year, Gellonian King, Sigismund August, died without a male air in 1572, this marks the start of the free elections where pretty much any member of a royal or princely house of a European background could be a candidate. At the same time, over the course of the 15th and 16th century, there develops in Poland, Lithuania, what we call a mixed monarch. which means that the king and the two parliament chambers, the Senate, made up of wealthy nobles who holds state office and the chamber of envoys, which is made up out of perhaps poorer nobles who are sent from local diatines that Robert was mentioning. Parliament has to agree to things like war, new taxes and new laws. And this is very different to how other Europeans. monarchies are developing at the time.

From feudal medieval monarchies, they are slowly developing to become what we call absolute monarchies in the 17th century. And we see the development of the fiscal state, which makes it possible to pay for professional armies. How did others, these monarchies, which were becoming increasingly authoritarian, and how did they regard this republic?

Did they regard it with suspicion from the first? Did they try to bring it back into line with what was really going on, particularly in France, with the Sun King and so on? Obviously, across Europe, political thinkers are voicing their ideas about this. So, for example, famous French political thinker Jean Vodal thinks that the King should have much more authority in power. And later on, Thomas Hobbes in England, has similar thoughts about the fact that the King,

should have much more power because this helps to provide stability. And we have to remember that these thinkers, Baudetian, was writing during the Wars of Religion in France, an incredibly turbulent time and Hobbes similarly during the Civil War. So their thoughts about this were perhaps linked to their experiences. But the parish political thought also spreads around Europe. And one example here is a political treatise by Vavzhenyazzyz Gosslitsky, sometimes called Gossilichus in English. It is a treatise called the good counsellor or the good senator. And this is translated quite widely across Europe, including England, where it has three translations.

We think that Shakespeare was familiar with it and some of these ideas have migrated into into Hamlet. Goslitsky was arguing for an elective king and a strong Senate, but also for freedom of religion. And those bits about freedom of religion were perhaps taken out of the English translation, which tells you something about the two states. Both Robert and Katarina have talked about the Republic, and at the same time we've been talking about kings, and that sounds like a contradiction in terms. The monarch, although had the title of king, was more like an elected president and was seen by the nobles as their servant. The nobles even had the right to rebel if they considered the king had broken the law. So they're not quite

kings as the rest of Europe thought of it. In fact, quite a lot of people said, you know, these Polish kings were not kings at all. The rest of Europe, did the rest of Europe think that this was a threat? Did it make it, was it a big difference? We know so little about it, even though it was so big and so vast, because it was broken up so comprehensively and successfully much later. The relations with Western Europe were relatively calm, quite different, of course, in the East, the Commonwealth's eastern frontier was very turbulent. But if Western Europeans thought about it at all, I think they thought it was a bit of a curiosity.

It wasn't like anything else in Europe other than, I suppose, some small cities. But the idea that a vast country could be a republic with an elected monarch was very odd indeed. But it was different on the eastern front with, with the Duchy of Grand Duchy of Moscovy. Indeed, relations were very fraught from the start. The majority of inhabitants of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

were Orthodox Slavs who traditionally recognised the patriarch of Constantinople, the Byzantine patriarch as the chief authority. Yet Moscow invented the theory of... so-called theory of the third Rome, and claimed that all Orthodox Slavs should recognize the patriarch of Moscow and the Muscovite Tsar. And, of course, this caused religious, political, territorial conflict right from the start. Thank you. Robert Frost, if we think of a Renaissance Republic, as Norman has mentioned, we probably think of a small retaliation city-state.

does this massive state, Poland, Lithuania, in any way, add to that? Is it different from that? Does it based on that? How's it picked in? Well, it is. It's based on Renaissance ideas. And one of the points that we have to emphasize about Poland, Lithuania, is that it takes on those Renaissance ideas of what a republic is,

which are based on classical ideas, on writers like Aristotle, Cicero, Polybius, and so on. and they put it into action. Now, when we think of a republic, and when many historians write about early modern Europe and write about republics, they think of a system without a king, because that's what happened in England in 1649. But when Bodan publishes his book,

he calls it the six books of the republic, which means, now, in ancient thought, a republic is a community of society of, citizens. It's not a state. Today we think of it as a form of the state, a non-monarchical form. But when polls think about their republic, they think about a community of citizens. And that's why at Lublin in 1569, this vision comes into operation. Because despite bitter arguments about the nature of the union before 1569, the idea of a republic in which power comes from below, the citizens have a say, they elect their monarch, is really powerful and attracts not just the Catholic

Lithuanians, but the Orthodox Ruthenians who reject the model of Muscovy on mass, and they want to have a system in which self-government is the key, and that's the key to Renaissance, the Renaissance Republic and vision. And in Europe at that, in the 16th century, republics are disappearing one by one. Luca, Siena, Florence, of course, from Machia, disappears and are taken over by princes. Venice survives, and many of the Polish-Lithuanian wealthiest elite are educated at the University of Padua, which is the Venetian University, and they stand up. They are the hope of Republican Europe. And that's why the union works, because it is a consensual system. And after they agree in 1569, they agree that the

Lithuanians should have the same legal status as the Poles that Lithuania was not incorporated into Poland. That's the formula that unlocks the agreement that sets up this massive republic. And the rest of Europe are astonished by it into the 18th century. Russo, who rather admires it because it's not an absolute monarchy. It opposes kings. He's puzzled by it, but he says,

this is actually rather good. I rather like this. But he can't make head or tail of it because it doesn't fit his categories, because the Poles reject the idea that Bodan has put forward of indivisible sovereignty. They have a mixed constitution. Yes. Poles and Lithuanians are very self-consciously proud of this republic,

and so they think there is a very small number in the early modern period of republics, and they count themselves, they count Venice. Then later on in the 17th century, the Netherlands, and then after the Growers' Revolution, they think, oh, England is. starting to look much more like a republic. They're very much keeping an eye on what's going on in the rest of Europe there. How seriously was the idea of religious tolerance taken in Poland, Lithuania? Poland, Lithuania was a multi-religious state before the Reformation.

And initially, after the Reformation, after some initial persecution in the 1520s, the Aguilonians, the kings, and not quite, not too keen on people, persecuting Protestants. And over the course of the 16th century, the nobility starts seeing freedom to practice religion as they wanted to as part of their political rights. In 1573, with the Warsaw Confederation, the novels signed this agreement,

and not all of them agree to this, but they want peace between all religions. And this is a sharp contrast to what was going on in the rest of Europe with wars of religion. How are successful are they achieving it in peace between all the religions that you should not make war on another group because of their religious convictions? They read that. Did they follow that? Yes, indeed, they did.

And like France or Holy Roman Empire, Protestants and Orthodox Christians hold offices of state in the Commonwealth. And similarly, other religious minorities like Armenians and Jewish communities are given some right to self-administrative. administration. Jewish people self-administer through the so-called Parliament of Four Lands, which deals with taxation,

but also has some judicial responsibilities. This is not to say that there isn't anti-Semitism, because there is, as in the rest of Europe. But nevertheless, the Commonwealth is a refuge for persecuted religious minorities across Europe, like the

Mennonites who come from the Netherlands, for example. And later on, the Scots arrive as well. But it does see, there's a statistic that I have in the notes here that says 85% of Jewish people alive today can track their origins back to this Poland, Lithuania Republic. Absolutely. And that there was, comparatively, there's still, as you pointed out, anti-Semitism, but compared to what was going on elsewhere, it was extremely tolerant in that area. Yes, Jewish people are exiled from Western Europe. in the 14th century.

So this is quite an extreme form of antisemitism. I think the names we use is important. This great reservoir of Jewish settlement in Poland, Lithuania, was divided up at the end of the 18th century, together with the Polish-Lithuanian state. And one third of those Polish Jews become Russian Jews, one third become Prussian and German Jews, and one third become Austrian.

everybody's heard about German Jews and Russian Jews and Austrian Jews and very few know what happened a stage before that. They nearly all came from Poland, Lithuania. Robert Frost, how important was the idea of veto in the parliament? Can you tell people what it was and how it worked? Yes, this is one of the great issues in Poland, Lithuania. The union worked because this was a consensual state in which in Polish tradition, decisions were taken by consensus.

The Polish term means unanimity. Now, that doesn't mean that they took a vote and everybody had to agree. When it worked, it was a means of saying, we do not agree, we have to go on talking. Decisions of the Parliament of the same were taken by consensus. All objections had to be withdrawn and then a staff, would be agreed and the Parliament would reach its conclusion. Wasn't that rather a long-winded way about it?

It was rather long-winded, but it weren't. I mean, actually, parliaments were limited by law to six weeks in the 16th and 17th century. They often extended their term, but they had to do so unanimously. Now, what happened in the great crisis of the middle of the 17th century was that a parliament was reaching the end of its debates on a front. Friday and the speaker said, I'd like to reassemble on Monday. Does anybody object? And one Lithuanian delegate stood up and said, I object and disappeared from the chamber, got on his horse and rode back to Lithuania. Now, that was a problem because usually what happened is that people would

follow the guy out and say, okay, what's your problem? What do you want? Can we persuade you to withdraw your objection? And sometimes that worked and sometimes it didn't. But this time, the whole same was broken and the whole parliament was broken and that meant that no legislation no taxis were agreed and over the course of the 17th century this device began to be used and it by the 18th century it was being used by Poland's neighbours who saw this as very convenient if somebody could be persuaded to stand up and say I object then the parliament would fail and then the 18th century in the reign of Augustus the 3rd between 1733 and 1763 only one parliament reached a conclusion,

and Parliament met every two years by law. This was the anarchy that undid the republic. But in terms of the union, when they wanted to reform this in the 1650s, the Lithuanians said, look, if you remove unanimity, the union will be finished because we will not be able to outvote the Polish majority. So it was essential for the union. And that was one of the problems that they faced, because majority rule involves the coercion of minorities.

Catherine, who benefited most from this republic? Of course it was the nobility, and they were the citizens of the Republic, the citizens of the Commonwealth. They had the political rights. They were quite a large social group. Estimates are somewhere around 6, perhaps up to 8% of the population, and that compares to, for example, in France,

to maybe 0.5% of the population. So it's quite a large social group. And they consider themselves very much the citizens. And we have obviously the wealthy, the rich magnates who often serve as senators and have quite direct access to the king, for example. But on the other hand, cities are not really represented within the official structures.

What did Poland, Lithuania, have that was valued across Europe at that time when they were at their greatness in terms of trade, culture, even Royal Alliances? What did they offer, as you were? Trade was really important. Poland, Lithuania was a great exporter of grain and timber. So grain, exports of grain allowed the big metropolis of Western Europe, like London and Paris to grow because urbanisation means. that you've got people who are not producing food. So it allowed urbanisation Western Europe. Timber, on the other hand, was used for shipbuilding. So the fleets that colonise overseas territories sent from Western Europe are quite often built using some of the Polish-Lithuanian timber. In terms of alliance, Poland-Lithuania was sought as an ally against Russia and the Ottomans

and perhaps the most famous scene here is the King of Poland, Jan Sobieski, riding to save Vienna from the Ottomans in 1683, saving the West. But this was part of a much more complex network of alliances, which was also enabled by elective monarchy, because it meant that dynasties around Europe spotted this opportunity to put their younger sons on the Polish. Lithuanian throne, like the Valois did, with the first freely elected Polish king, Henri Valois, who only lasted admittedly about five months. But then the Vazas, the Vetians, the Habsburgs, they all try. In terms of culture, Poland was an important Renaissance centre with its universities in Krakow, for example, and important thinkers like Copernicus.

In some, Norman Davis, in some quarters, it was becoming popular as time went on and towards the end of the 18th century to mock Poland, Lithuania, as chaotic. Who did that and were they right? Diderot's encyclopedia published in first volume in 1751 has a huge article called Anashe, Anarchy. And it's all about Poland Lithuania, saying what a terrible system. it is and how chaos reigns in Poland, Lithuania. And a lot of that was true of what was happening in the mid-18th century, but people in general, readers in general, got the impression that Poland, Lithuania had always been like that. That they, you know, the system had never worked. You know, the Liberum Veta was idiotic. And Poland's bad reputation, Poland, Lithuania,

the Republic's bad reputation was very much the work of, you know, Voltaire, people of that generation. And that has become the stereotype which was remembered. But taking, you know, the centuries-long history of Poland, Lithuania, that stereotype is very unjust. Robert Frost, can you – was there any key event that may have? have tilted to tip the balance against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth? Was it a steady erosion, as Normans implied? I wouldn't say it was a steady erosion. I would suggest that down to 1648, the Republic worked well.

The citizens believed in it, they defended it, and they defended it very effectively. Polish armies defeated the Swedes, the Muscovites, the Ottomans in the first half of the 17th century. Sometimes they were fighting war on two fronts, up in the north against Muscovy and down in the south against the Turks and the Tartas in the 1630s, for example. But then they faced a crisis from 1648, and it was a crisis in the Ruthenian territories, what is now modern Ukraine. And that crisis was to do with religion. Katajina talked about how there was religious toleration, and it was remarkable. The first free election takes place, and religion does not play a role, which in 16th century, Europe is astonishing. They won't elect a Protestant king, but religion does not disrupt

this election seriously. But as the counter-reformation gets going, and as Catholicism spreads, and as Polish culture spreads in the east, the Protestant church begins to fade away, the elite starts switching, and often you get Orthodox nobles in what's now Ukraine, becoming Protestant, and then ending up as Catholics. And by the middle of the 17th century, in the eastern lands, Lithuania and Ukraine and Belarus, the elites are almost all Catholic. And that causes problems for members of the elite

who are the lesser nobility, who are still orthodox in Ukraine, the Cossacks, who are freebooters, who live in the wild step and defend the Commonwealth against the Ottomans. and in 1648 there's a big explosion. Bogdán Hmelnitsky, he regards himself as a nobleman. He served the Commonwealth in the Ukrainian Cossack Army, which serves the Commonwealth.

But he has a court case. He's an Orthodox noble. The local courts are dominated by Catholics. Can he get justice? No, he can't. So he's a second-class citizen. And many of the Ukrainians have gone to this wild. frontier to escape serfdom in the rest of the Commonwealth and as a huge explosion.

And once the Commonwealth starts fighting wars on its own territory, it can't cope. Its taxation system collapses. The Liberum veto comes in. Politicians are blamed. And its neighbours start working out that if they send their armies into Poland, Lithuania, they can support them. And between 1648 and 1721, Poland, Lithuania is constantly at war. And that's when the system comes under Australia.

that it cannot survive or it seems to be unable to survive. Katajana, what major changes would people, as are on the ground, have seen as this changes that just been described by Robert was taking place? On the breaking of the Commonwealth, the final breaking of the Commonwealth between Russia, Prussia and Austria in 1795, it's a seismic change. Nobles lose their political primacy and their way. of parliamentary politics. The Polish population and also the population of the old Grand Dachi sees Russification

for those who are under the Russian Tsar, where the languages are suppressed, the history is suppressed, people are being sent off to Siberia, there is censorship. On the other hand, there is also pacification under pressure in schools where particularly some young people object to being taught in German. In Austria, which was already a multicultural empire, this is much more relaxed, and therefore Krakow and Vos become centres of Polish culture and the young Poland cultural artistic movement is born. They are all absolute monarchies, Prussia, Russia and Austria,

so they want to centralise. So minority groups suffer that any remnants of the self-government, of the Jewish community is taken away. In Austria, they are subject to military service, and also across the three partitions, they have to have standardized surnames as well. Norman, Norman Davis, we all told that history is written by the victors. How was the history of Poland-Lithuania treated after its final partition?

You have very strong views on this. There was a great debate as to whether Poland-Lithuania had collapse through its own anarchy and incompetence, or whether it was simply carved up by its great neighbours. And in reality, it was a combination of the two. I think I've written somewhere that, you know, a sick patient was murdered in his bed. Poland, Lithuania, at the end of the 18th century, was unable to defend itself, and the three great neighbours carved it up like a cake. Now, after that, in the 19th century, history, as you rightly say, written by the winners, was written either by the Prussians.

The Prussian School of History was extremely influential, Tritschka at the end of the century. And in Russia, the Russian School of History, Klučske, the Prussians looked, down on Poland, Lithuania, as, you know, everything that a country, a nation shouldn't be. It was in the line of the Enlightenment, sort of unworthy of existence. On the Russian side, the Russians looked at Poland, Lithuania, as their lands, which had been unjustly taken over for centuries, and which, you know, Russian patriotism was now winning back. If you look at the great Russian operas of the mid-19th century,

then, you know, blinker and so on, they nearly all start with a scene of the, you know, the decadent Poles who are on the way out. Defeat of Poland, Lithuania, was essential as necessary for the rise of the Russian Empire. And, of course, Russian historians have glorified, the empire and denigrated Poland, Lithuania. With regard to the line about history written by the winners,

that's absolutely true, but only up to a point. Losers write history, and Poles wrote a great deal of history in the 19th century, but it doesn't get translated. And so the version of Polish and Lithuanian history that we've read in the West for generations has been the version as put out by historians of Russia, Germany, in particular. and that's why so little is known about this remarkable political construct, as you said at the start, Melvin. Katarina, how is this, that is this great Poland, Lithuania, Commonwealth viewed by those whose ancestors lived through it? It's viewed very differently in Poland and then in the territories that used to be the Grand Duchy.

In Poland, we talk about the post-colonial attitude because we have to remember that Poland was both a coloniser, for example, of Ukraine, which is sometimes called the Polish Indies by some historians, and also colonized by the partitions. So on one hand, there is the idea of the martyred nation, the crucified nation, betrayed by Western countries and Russia.

On the other hand, There are those daydreams about colonisation in the East, about the civilising mission, and it's a sort of romantic idea of the Polish eastern borderlands. And though I think there's a bit more conversation is starting in the public sphere recently about some inequalities of the Commonwealth as well, such as serfdom. But in the areas of the old duchy, I think Commonwealth is viewed less as a common endeavour. and in the modern times it's viewed more as something that allowed the polonisation of the elites and also the sort of colonisation and exploitation of these lands.

So the national narratives often pose Poland as the coloniser, the sort of alien Western imperialist. And there's literature on both sides, Sienkiewicz on the Polish side and Gogol on the Ukrainian side, for example. And they both, even though they pose those different, tropes against each other, they both use the same narrative of a mad, passionate love of a Cossack for a Polish woman, which perhaps captures some of that turbulent relationship. Finally, Norman Davis, do you think that the appreciation of this Great Commonwealth

is dawning on people, or do you think it's not, it can't, or it's died sort of historical death. That's a very curious question. We don't know the answer. The memories of the Commonwealth are very much alive in Poland. People in Poland are taught about their golden age in the 16th century in the creation of the Commonwealth. Elsewhere, in Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, modern nationalism has sort of destroyed all the sort of favorite or possible favorable memories. And as Katasina was saying, they tend to look back as this as a time of oppression, time of serfdom and of foreign rule by what they call Poles, although, of course, a lot of the rulers were whatever,

pollenized Lithuanians or Ukrainians or whatever. but it's still there. A very curious thing in watching the demonstrations in Minsk a couple of years ago, I noticed that people were carrying flags with the emblem of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania on it, the rider, the horseman. Somewhere there in Belarusia are memories of times. They're trying to use, I think, the first time, for ages, trying to use their history in a positive way.

Things have changed a bit since 1990, since the fall of the Soviet Union, because under the Soviet system, the negative view of the Commonwealth was very much encouraged in Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, historians have begun to get together and work with colleagues in Poland and outside Poland, and a more balanced view of the past has emerged. Archives were not open under the Soviet Union, so Poles couldn't go very easily and study in archives in Ukraine and Belarus.

In the years since then, a great deal of work has begun, and Lithuanians and Ukrainians and Belarusians to an extent are recognizing that this is a vital period in their own history. As Norman said at the start, it was 400 years. That's a very long time. And in the 19th century, one of the problems was that Hegel and Herder defined a nation as something that was defined by language, said Herder. But Hegel said that proper nations have to have a state. They have to have a tradition of a statehood.

Otherwise, they're not really proper nations. And so Belarusians see today in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania their statehood that shows that they're not Russians and that they're different. And Ukrainians are the same. they look back to Kiev and Rus, they look back to the Cossack period, to legitimise themselves as an independent state. And that, of course, caused problems. But the Commonwealth was not a state. It was a republic of citizens. The problem for it was that that was a narrow elite who spoke Polish by the 18th century and were mostly Catholic. And that caused problems in the 19th century. Well, thank you all very much indeed. Thank you, Robert Frost. Thank you Norman Davis.

and Katasina Koshio. And to our studio engineer, Tim Heffer. Next week, it's a philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch. Thank you for listening. And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests. What was not said that you would very much like to have been said? Can I start with you again, Norman?

I was going to say a bit more about contemporary affairs. Ukraine is, you know, a hot, hot, spot in Europe. And most people don't know why Ukraine is different from Russia. And the answer, of course, is in this history we've been telling you about it. It was a part of a different cultural sphere for centuries. Linguistic problems are also important. What the Russians say about all this is very well known. They treat Ukraine or Nobelorussian as Russian dialects. I try to explain to students, a bit like Germany, Deutsch, and the Dutch in the Netherlands. They obviously have common roots, but the two languages have diverged over centuries.

And the first thing a Dutchman will say, I'm not a German. You know, it's a different language, a different culture. And the same is true of Ukraine and Russia. Putin, whose name, of course, is Vladimir, St. Vladimir, who is a saint, both of Russia and St. Volodymyr of Ukraine. If you go down from Notting Hill in London, I think it's Holland Avenue, you'll see a statue of St. Velodimir, who the Ukrainians regard as their Ukrainian saint. The Russians insist that Vladimir was a Russian. And these are, you know, conflicted historical narratives which are current today. And at the root of why the Russians don't regard Ukraine as a proper state that Putin has said as much.

It's not to do with, you know, Soviet times. It's to do with culture developed a long, long time before. I think I very much agree with what Robert and Norman were saying about particularly the Commonwealth being used as a way for these modern countries to cast themselves against Russia. And I think there is still quite a strong affinity. For example, when the Maiden was happening in the Ukraine, where many Ukrainians wanted a closer relationship. with the European Union. The way it was reported in Poland and followed in Poland suggest that there's interest.

And similarly, there are still many, for example, many Poles who live in Belarus as well, but consider themselves Polish. And similarly, there are, on the borderlands, there is a mix of different peoples. There are Orthodox Christians as well. these borders were drawn and people were sometimes left behind on the other side of the border. So these relationships are still can be quite close. Well, I think the thing we hadn't spoken about in the context of the partitions of the 18th century

is the Constitution of 3rd of May 1791, which is the point at which the Polish Republic did what its neighbours said it couldn't do. It reformed itself. There was a four-year same, which lasted four years instead of six weeks, while Russia was distracted by war against the Turks. And under partly the influence of the Enlightenment and its new ideas, partly under the influence of America, where a new model of republicanism was instituted after 1776, the polls watched the debates about the American constitution very, very closely. and they produce their own constitution, which preserves a great deal about their republic,

but revives it. And it's that constitution that persuades the Prussians that they've got to go for a second partition because if Poland-Lithuania survives, they think Prussia's in danger. So they persuade the Russians to go for the second partition, and that's what ends it. So the Commonwealth has ended because it reformed itself

and showed that it could do it. And to return to the literature, Liberum veto very briefly, I would say that if you look at the Commonwealth for what it is and not say, well, it's a failed state, it's a republic that succeeds, you can say, well, the Liberam veto is alive and well. It is used in the European Council of Ministers for the European Union, because sovereign states don't want to be bullied into taking decisions at a European level without their consent. So it's still there in politics today.

And finally, about 1918, when the petitioning powers collapse, it is a terrible moment in European history for the peoples of the old Commonwealth because 19th century nationalism has brought up this view of ethnic nationalism, of linguistic nationalism, and in 1918 it divides families.

Families have to make choices in Lithuania, and what is now Lithuania, as to whether they're Lithuanians or Poles. And brothers and sisters, fathers and sons, choose different sides, which raises questions about the nature of national identity. Famously, the first president of the Polish Republic, Narutovic, who was assassinated. His brother decided he was Lithuanian and sat in the Tariba, the first sort of cabinet of the new Lithuanian state.

And Poland and Lithuania fought a war. and Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, was taken by the Poles, because by then most of its inhabitants spoke either Polish or Yiddish. It was a terrible moment. Thank you very much indeed, all of you. Thank you. In our time with Melvin Bragg is produced by Simon Tillotson. This is Add to Playlist, our new podcast from BBC Radio 4 with me, Keros Matthews, and me, Geoffrey Pobachi.

Ditch the streaming algorithm as we take you on a music. journey of discovery. In each show, we'll create a playlist of five tracks chosen by Keras and myself, and with the help of a different studio guest each week, we'll explore the rich and unexpected web of connections between the music you love, hate, and haven't even heard of. That's a promise. We'll go under the bonnet of our compositions

and look closer at the nuts and boats to reveal what's behind our favourite tunes. Just search for Add to Playlist on BBC Sounds. Thank you.