Hey, it's the day after 4/20 here and almost a year later and I just found your channel! I am moving to a Polish neighborhood in the United States with a Lithuanian population and music hall at the end of my block! I am using this video to learn more about the history these two cultures share.
Thank you so much - and nice Journey pic; still a few overlooked chapters of history relating to the Commonwealth we hope to cover in future videos, actually.
This was a great video on a very overlooked former multi ethnic super power of Europe during the Early Modern Period. Tadeusz Kościuszko was also a brilliant military leader who deserves respect on par with that of Fredric the Great my opinion. It's sad that few people know who he was. I sincerely hope this channel blows up with plenty of subscribers because it's well deserved.
Thank you so much for the comments! I fully agree and, because of that, we're probably going to make a video focusing on Tadeusz Kościuszko's story at some point; we've also got plans to cover Antonina Tomaszewska, Casimir Pulaski, Emilia Plater, and some other individuals from the Commonwealth.
Kościuszko was poor military commander. He was brilliant military engineer, moderate tactician and terrible stategist. Due to absolute lack of stategist skills to caused battles he couldn't win. However he was brilliant military engineer. I daresay no one understood field fortification as him till gen. Lee.
Hope you like our first multipart episode; it's definitely on the longer side, but with the Commonwealth, there's just so much history to cover. Be sure to keep an eye out for part 2!
Overall a good job, but there are some common mistakes and misconceptions, even spread by Poles. I recommend watching especially "Panel 2.2 Robert Frost" and "The Idea of the Republic in Poland-Lithuania: A Conversation with Robert Frost".
@@ChillDudelD Thanks - really appreciate honest viewer feedback; definitely will check out the videos you recommended, especially since they're both on TH-cam, and make sure to exercise due diligence in future videos on the subject!
5:08 dont mistake the Wiec / Vieche with the Sejm / Parliament. - the first one is a tribal meeting with voting our tribes had since immerioable past (recorded in late bronze age by Greeks), - the second one is the meeting of elders or of representatives - the thing more like Roman Senate, Polish Sejm consisted of two chambers: chamber of Senators(elders) and chamber of representatives.
1:58 Yes, Jadwiga was crowned at the age of 10/11 as KING of Poland. Despite being crowned at such young age she never had a regant. She was one of the best rulers in polish history. She TRIPLED size of the kingdom of Poland by dimplomacy, marriage and wars. She was a great diplomat and even her enemies admitted that it was impossible to get more than she decided to give. She was also able to lead war campaigns, like when in 1387 (she was 13 at that time) she conquered Ruthenia. She was able to speak in 6 languages. She gave life to the first university in Poland (Casimir the Great started the process of its creation, but Jadwiga finished the work). Sadly she reigned only for 15 years because she died young at the age of 25/26. It's really impressive how much she was able to achieve during those 15 years and it makes you think how much she could do if she lived longer.
@@bifa5414 Yes, just like her sister who became a King of Hungary. I see that the Poles also allowed a woman to become King. It is interesting that in the Hungarian Kingdom at that time, fiúsítás was still fashionable. Fiúsítás=Prefection Prefection also promotion of a daughter to a son (Hungarian: fiúsítás; Latin: praefectio in filium), was a royal prerogative in the Kingdom of Hungary, whereby the sovereign granted the status of a son to a nobleman's daughter, authorizing her to inherit her father's landed property and transmitting noble status to her children even if she married a commoner. Such a daughter was called a praefecta in Latin.
@@bifa5414 There was no fiúsítás/Perfection outside of Hungary. If I know right. That's why many people don't even know about it. Louise the Great even agreed with the Pope, so it was accepted outside of Hungary. If I remember correctly, there were too many wars and too many girls were born. Louise the Great also only had daughters. Several King and noble man in Hungary had only just daughters. Although as far as I know it existed around the time the Kingdom was established. The conditions were there, but it happened many times. Maria Theresa also accepted to become King of Hungary.
I neglected to leave a comment here the first time I watched this video, so I came to rectify it, and upon the second viewing, I noticed the Monty Python reference at 7:40. For those who don't know, "Mój poduszkowiec jest pełen węgorzy" means "My hovercraft is full of eels".
Oh, no problem whatsoever - thanks for commenting; it’s a really interesting chapter of history that doesn’t get as much coverage as it should. We’ll definitely be revisiting the Commonwealth in the future and some other related topics too!
1. Polish Lithuanian Union prof. Robert Frost th-cam.com/video/MTrbR4stbhY/w-d-xo.html 2. Commonwealth of Diverse Cultures (Poland-Lithuania) prof. Norman Davis th-cam.com/video/Hl7t19eXy88/w-d-xo.html 3. The Noblemen's Democracy of Poland and Lithuania th-cam.com/video/TW_hcZCY6QM/w-d-xo.html 4. Gaude Mater Polonia , the first Polish anthem th-cam.com/video/Wv8LriCtwxE/w-d-xo.html
Wow, your channel is so underrated. I really thought I was watching someone with a few hundred thousand subscribers, but you have only over 200! Wish you best of luck in making videos.
Thank you so much Krivis and that definitely is the goal 😅 - seems to be happening slowly, but steadily. We had a considerable bump in subscribers/views this past month!
Hey, thanks Vapor Koldun and yeah, Lithuania does (rather unfortunately) often get overlooked when discussing the Commonwealth’s history; on that note, we’re actually planning to do an episode proper about the Grand Duchy at some point, which is more than deserving of its own video!
Oh stop, it has been proved that grand duchy of Lithuania is today's belarus. You just stole the name of the country. Look at the population of the commonwealth 4,5m poles,3,5 Ukrainians (Cossacks)1,5m Belarusians and only 0,7 "Lithuanians" called then and now Baltic people, pribalty or Żmudzini in polish. There's a deal between today's belarus and Lithuania that the grand duchy of Lithuania was Belarusian-lithuanian state, not Lithuanian, your ancestors were in minority. Google it, stop rewriting history.
@@pawel4539 How about you fucking read some history and realize, that the Duchy was STARTED by lithuanians, but expanding southwards put a lot of Ruthenians into the population, obviously making Lithuanian a minority. It's almost like the Lithuanian government back then just gradually became more ruthenian, writing the "Statut" in Ruthenian. What I was saying before was that literally NOONE talked about the huge contribution the Lithuanians gave for STARTING the duchy. Nationalism wasn't a thing back then, and ruthenians were honorary lithuanians that fought for the duchy. You're attributing it all to belarus and poland, like the Bellarusians could have even done that with the golden horde, you trogolodyte. I know Belarus had a lot to do with it, but shut the fuck up.
And I'm not saying it wasn't started by Lithuanians I can even say their contribution to a commonwealth was a monarchy. But I will be always fighting with people saying that 5% of total population played a biggest role. Check every commonwealth related video and read what your fellow Lithuanians have to say taking everything into their account having nothing to do with those people, sadly we have nothing to do with them too after all those years of wars, occupation, murdering of all polish elites. It's just history, beautiful but history.
@@pawel4539 I get that belarus has barely any history, but to claim the grand duchy as their own basically not caring about how the most important cities were built by lithuanians. We can share this history, noone said we couldn't.
Litwo! Ojczyzno moja! ty jesteś jak zdrowie. Ile cię trzeba cenić, ten tylko się dowie, Kto cię stracił. Dziś piękność twą w całej ozdobie Widzę i opisuję, bo tęsknię po tobie.
I really find this interesting. Such a huge Empire, that little is taught about. The only modern reference I am familiar with is a very weird movie called Tarus Bulba😂Looking forward to the next episode
Thanks; definitely an overlooked chapter in history. I never heard of Taras Bulba before, but just looked into it a little bit - pretty interesting historical novella / movie dealing with the Cossacks. Although, it sounds like the movie - there's a few, actually - differs from the original text.
Taras Bulba is rather quite bad from a historical point of view. And as a movie Ogniem i mieczem aka With Fire and Sword (/watch?v=PwrlrfSQghM) is better at depicting that conflict. Although historically not entirely accurate as the books it's based on are more of a novel taking inspiration from history, but yet still more accurate and better than Taras Bulba...
@@ChillDudelD Thanks for the info! Just looked into With Fire and Sword (film and novel) a bit; in terms of the books, would you recommend The Deluge and Fire in the Steppe as well?
@@GhostCountries Yes definitely, well they are part of the same Trilogy. Speaking of the Deluge, this documentary is good and very eye opening - /watch?v=_NZ5Fbsq1v0. I also recommend watching a not so long ago released documentary-drama Born For the Saber (/watch?v=Lqf5vuJqQv0) that shows off the vibe and traditions of the PLC quite well. P.S. Bit too much at once huh? :D
Kraków didn't replace Vilnius. Throughout the entire Union both Kraków and Vilnius were capitals of the respective countries. Warsaw was the capital of the Union, just like Brussels today, but Kraków and Vilnius both kept their regional capital status, and actually the sejm was moved to Warsaw so that the Lithuanians had it closer.
@@GhostCountriesCommonwealth was nothing like commie loving EU, although its fall was caused by similar problem that EU is facing today like multi-culturalism, arrogance of political class, bribery and corruption.
@@kube410 because it allowed hungarians or lithuanians influence the country in many ways. Poland was indistinguishable from the west up until the Renaissance after which it increasingly became more eastern in looks, even adopting some middle eastern look if there was no multi-culturalism it would've stayed true to itself. But the outsiders ruled it and changed it.
@@nexor7809 Bullshit. Before christianity poland was totally eastern. Ever since adopting christianity Poland was always a mixture of east and west culturally. Poland was a bit late to adopting feudalism and used a "drużyna" system that was more aligned with the eastern norms until we adopted feudalism. The adoption of middle eastern look that you speak of is not really about the middle east but it comes from polish szlachta's fascination with sarmatians who were a people who once inhabited our lands and polish nobility saw them as their ancestors. What do you mean stayed true to itself? Polands identity was pretty much always multicultural. We have lusitians in the west kashubians in the north silesians and górals in the south and once we also saw ruthenians and lithuanians same way. That allience of central european cultures made us strong enough to push back germans and russians for centuries. It wasnt multi culturalism that was at fault of destroying the country but corruption, bad laws, and weak leadership that allowed russians to plant a puppet king and weaken sejm even more.
Just a small correction here. The Lithuanian language fell out of (official) use long before the establishement of the Commonwealth. In the Grand Dutchy of Lithuania itself they stopped using it in favor of the Ruthenian language. Ruthenian chancery language, or Chancery Ruthenian language was a variety of this language, used in official and legal documents of the Grand Dutchy of Lithuania. It stayed official language of administration in the Lithuanian part of the Commonwealth up to 1699. The polonisation wasn't officially ordained and persued. It was simply that capital was in Warsaw, the University - in Krakow. The main port - in Gdansk. Just us today if you want to achieve something in the world of bussiness or politics- you have to know english, so in the Polish-Lithuanian Commowealth it was a good idea to know polish. Simply - all the centres were located in the Polish part of the country. If you are wondering why the Lithuanian administration would on its own volition abandon their own language, the answer is simple. Ethnic Lithuania was quite small, and all the lands they conquered were Ruthenian. Moreover - they were more advanced. As a result, in the high days of the pre Commonwealth Grand Dutchy of Lithuania, ethnic Lithuanians made up just 10 % of the population. They naturally Ruthenised (at least the noble did), in just the same way, as they later Polonised.
10:55 If you are frightened by a slight gust of wind through a straw, then you are right, even during loudness measurements there are practically no changes with or without wings. Hussars wore wings made from the skins of wild animals, such as leopards, to look cool and menacing, as if they were being attacked by a deity, something not of this earth.
Im polish and i want to give a very short lesson on pronunciation the w’s in polish are pronounced like V’s and the j’s are pronounced y. Hope you learned something about the polish language
Hey, thanks for letting us know! We'll definitely keep that in mind since we plan to cover more topics dealing with Poland (and Eastern Europe, more generally) in time.
Oh, thank you so much; really glad to hear that someone learned something new from the video! There's a lot of material on the Commonwealth out there, but I'd recommend checking out The Great Courses / Wondrium's "A History of Eastern Europe." It's more of a broad overview of Eastern European history, still definitely worth a watch if you've got time.
True and over in Illinois, his legacy is celebrated in a local holiday called "Casimir Pulaski Day" on the first Monday of March. I definitely think we'll cover Pulaski's story in a proper episode at some point - we have a new miniseries coming up soon that we're calling Ghost Biographies.
@@Momma27 Ah interesting. Thanks for the lesson. It was also spoken as "slav" to me but maybe that came from the fact that Polish had been mixed with our English and unfortunately some lasting Russian influences from the time before my family came stateside during the partitions.
You need to understand that Poland didn't have to force to learn polish as USA, England and Germany don't force anybody to learn english or german. As you underlined Poland was flourishing culturally, so other nations wanted to learn this language to have access to it.
We actually had another commenter bring up this point and retreading a bit here: I'd agree the Commonwealth’s western portion was, unquestionably, more developed and exerted greater pull over nobles back east - although, some officials continued to speak Lithuanian and Sigismund II even reportedly maintained both Polish- / Lithuanian-speaking courts. So, yeah; while I would agree there wasn’t forced Polonization, there were broad direct and indirect factors that, for lack of a better way of phrasing it, influenced most nobles of the time to adopt the Polish language (or, at least, have a working knowledge of it), among other things.
@@niemamnicku1359 The history of the broader Eastern European region is just so interesting and - like you point out - historically there was so much fluidity. Oh, and thank you so much!
@@GhostCountries oh yes. It is. Unfortunately we were behind the iron curtain for long time so west doesnt know our history. May I ask you where do you come from? Do you need any help with finding interesting stories about Poland?
@@niemamnicku1359 Oh, exactly and yeah, no problem! There's two of us working on the channel: one from Germany and the USA. And, of course; we're always open to suggestions on topics to cover. Actually, we're going to be setting up a Discord server soon-ish, which should make it a lot easier to comment, share, etc. You should join once it's up - we'll be making a post on the page's community tab.
Despite all this, Poland's national anthem is called "Poland Is Not Yet Lost. Gotta love the fighting spirit, especially in this era where Poland looks to be NATO's bulwark. God bless Poland
I was thinking of other “ghost countries” like Burgundy, Aragon, the gothic kingdoms. And then I realized how vague that term was, most nations of history are lost to the annals of time.
...which just means we have that much more to cover 😉; honestly though, Burgundy, Aragon, and the various Gothic kingdoms would all make for fascinating episodes!
Not really no. Elective monarchy/democracy was one of the factors leading to later partition of PLC. 3rd may constitution (first in Europe and 2nd in the world) actually brought back hereditary monarchy because it was know that elective king is disasterous idea.
When the Union of Lublin happened, the official language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, was Ruthenian. That's why taking about the suppression of the Lithuanian language or culture, by the Poles is a bit unfair. There was no forced polonization back then. The Western, Polish part of the Commonwealth had greater cities, more densely populated area's and more advanced agriculture. That's why many nobles in the East choose Polish culture and language, for they considered it to be superior.
To be fair, that’s a valid point; Ruthenian / Chancery Slavonic was used by many nobles in the Grand Duchy, while Latin and German (to a lesser extent) were also used in some capacity. Lithuanian was largely, though not exclusively, limited to Lithuania proper and its usage did exhibit fluidity over the ensuing years. The Commonwealth’s western portion, unquestionably, was more developed and thus exerted greater pull over nobles back east. Interestingly though, some officials continued to speak Lithuanian quite regularly and Sigismund II reportedly maintained both Polish- / Lithuanian-speaking courts. So, while I would agree there wasn’t forced Polonization, there were broad direct and indirect factors that, for lack of a better way of phrasing it, influenced nobles of the time to adopt the Polish language (or, at least, have a working knowledge of it), among other things. 🤔🙂
@@GhostCountries I believe you can compare the union between Poland and Lithuania to that of England and Scotland, where also no deliberate governmental program was introduced to forcefully Anglicize the Scots. Polish just sort of replaced Latin as the common language for the Commonwealth, and a new common "Polish" (gente Lithuanus, natione Polonus) identity arose which just like the British identity wasn't focused on your ethnic origin but rather on the common citizenship ideals of the Rzeczpospolita (PLC). Naturally, just like the English nobility often had the upper hand, likewise the Polish nobility in the western Parts of the Commonwealth were at first usually more dominant than their Lithuanian and Ruthenian counterparts in the east. However it should also be remembered that some of the originally Lithuanian or Ruthenian upper nobility became really powerful within the Commonwealth, even more powerful than ethnically Polish lords from the west (e.g. the House of Czartoryski) and I'm sure that some Scottish or Welsh families were able to achieve a similar position within Great Britain as well. All in all, the process of a sort of a cultural unification which occurred in Poland-Lithuania & the United Kingdom between the 15th and 19th centuries cannot be directly compared to the actually brutal and forceful attempts made by the Prussian/German and Russian occupying forces to fully Germanize or Russify the former subjects of the Polish-Lithuanian Crown after the Partitions.
@@martinledermann1862 Honestly, that's a pretty good historical comparison I hadn't thought of before. We might explore the subject further on the channel in another video relating to the Polish population transfers (1944-1946), Operation Vistula, etc.
This video is missing an important point. Polish view on democracy. Democracy in Poland was created by the fact that King had to campaign to have support. Upper aristocracy (Magnateria) was more powerful than the King leading to the power balance Magnates King + lower nobility. To increase power of lower nobility King was giving rights and privileges. As kings were elected they became more like a lifetime presidents than actual monarchs. This caused escalation in granted rights and privileges as they didn't care much about what happens after they pass away (their children were not automatically heirs to the throne). From this you can see a clear picture of Polish Democracy. 1) We don't care where the ruler came from 2) Ruler has to benefit us 3) Ruler is our servant
Great video, I'm always happy when our multi-cultural alliance and state gets recognition! Small correction at 4:20 - the first city on this picture city is Poznań ;-)
Oh, thank you so much; the story of the Commonwealth is fascinating and undoubtedly deserves more attention. We do plan (eventually) on making a video about the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Ruthenia, and other related topics! Also, yeah; unfortunately, we noticed that misspelling after the video was uploaded and can't fix it in YT's editor...I might just pin a comment or something. 😅
Oh, definitely...you know, Netflix actually has a few pretty good docudrama historical series, would be interesting to see one set in the Commonwealth - maybe dealing with the Battle of Vienna (1683) or the Deluge. 🤔
I agree the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth deserves more spotlight when it comes to its history. A Netflix series would be great, but honestly I think it should even have a Hollywood film with A- list actors in the style of the Polish movie With Fire and Sword. The best chance of this ever happening would probably have to start with a Polish-American director deciding to take on something like this. Hopefully there is a respectable movie on this topic someday.
Yeah; we unfortunately noticed that misspelling after the video was uploaded and can't fix it in YT's editor...think I'll just pin a comment or something, but glad you got a laugh out of it. 😅
Poznań (pronounced: po-z-nine) is misspelled, Lwów (Lvoov) Warsaw correct in English. Its Polish spelling is Warszawa, pronounced (var-sha-va). Finally Kraków is spelled correctly in English although some people pronounce it as Krakov (pronounced krakoov in Polish).
Yeah, we unfortunately noticed that Poznań was misspelled at bit too late (i.e. after publishing 😅), but thanks for letting us know about the pronunciations! Despite us both speaking a few languages, neither of us knows Polish. I think we've gotten better with that in later videos though - like that covering Wallachia.
Actually, regarding Kraków, the actual historical spelling used by Anglo-Saxons has always been CRACOW (coming from its Latin name Cracovia). The modern spelling variant of 'Krakow" looks more exotic to the Western eye and as a Polish citizen I'd prefer it if it could be avoided but I guess we've already gone so far into the realm of political correctness that it can no longer be reversed even though it doesn't make any sense (the inhabitant of Kraków is still called a 'Cracovian' in English and nobody is criticizing the French for their ongoing use of 'Cracovie', so it's only the English variant that stupid people focused on due to the global dominance of that language).
6:10 I don't know why you think Poles demanded land from Lithuania in exchange for military help. The Commonwealth was created because the last King from the Lithuanian Jagiellon dynasty knew he wouldn't have any children and he wanted to preserve the unity of both countries. Uniting the countries meant that the Lithuanian nobles would get promoted in their rights and achieve full democratic freedoms just like Polish nobles did. The Lithuanian magnates opposed the idea and that's why the King cut the territory in half and annexed it to Poland because most of the great latifundia of those magnates were in Ukraine. They had to agree for the federation if they didn't want to lose connection to their land. No one took their land from them though. In Poland rights of the nobles were sacred and that included one's property rights. A Polish King couldn't pay a visit to a noble without a prior invitation not to mention taking one's land. There were however "królewszczyzny" (royal lands) that a king could give to nobles only temporary for their good work or military valour. One of such guys was Chmielnicki's father and when he died his son made a Cossack uprising because he didn't understand the word "temporary". Note that when later Sobieski gave land to the Tatars it was his private land. That's why they can still live there till today. Otherwise Polish kings really had limited powers. The reason why every elective king built his own palace in Warsaw suburbs was because they knew no royal castle belonged to them. The royal castles, land, royal (so called "free") towns all belonged to the State. The only reason the last Jagiellon could divide the land of Lithuania in half was because up to that point the Lithuanian nobles didn't have the same rights as Polish nobles, while the King as the Lithuanian Great Duke had much more power in Lithuania than as a Polish King in Poland.
Louis the Great did not want Jadwiga (Hedvig in Hungary) to rule. He always wanted the throne for his other daughter and even found a suitable husband for her. It is interesting that in the Hungarian Kingdom at that time, fiúsítás was still fashionable. His other daughter was also crowned King because on paper she was a Praefecta. Fiúsítás=Prefection Prefection also promotion of a daughter to a son (Hungarian: fiúsítás; Latin: praefectio in filium), was a royal prerogative in the Kingdom of Hungary, whereby the sovereign granted the status of a son to a nobleman's daughter, authorizing her to inherit her father's landed property and transmitting noble status to her children even if she married a commoner. Such a daughter was called a praefecta in Latin.
_Something important to know, for all who are interested in history and/or support Ukraine:_ _Rus' ought not to be confused with modern “Russia”, which derives its name from the Rus' but historically is a completely different state, which almost all its existence was at war with the Rus'._ _Just like the Holy Roman Empire was actually Germany, “Russia” is actually Muscovy, despite their best attempts to convince everybody otherwise._ _Its name “Russia" received only in the 18th century, when Peter I simply changed Muscovy’s name into the “All Russian Empire” (Russia originates from Rosia, name used by the Greek Orthodox Clergy in regards to Rus')_ _Under the reign of Cathrine II Muscovites where even punished for continuing to identify as Muscovites, and were forced to call themselves Russian._ _Lands that Russia (Muscovy) claims were part of the original Rus', but actually weren't, are Novgorod, Suzdal, and Ryazan, since in historical texts of XI-XII centuries they are mentioned as separate entities from Rus'. They can be considered parts of extended Rus', although their culture was distinct from main Rus'._ _In 1493, Muscovite duke Ivan III appointed himself to be the Great Ruler of All Rus'. No other kings acknowledged that. From that point on Muscovy started to make false claims on Rus' ownership._ _“Russia” is an offshoot of Ukraine and not the other way round, despite what Soviet and Russian (Muscovite) historians have been trying to say for years. A Slavicised Finnic, then later, Mongolized offshoot. Kyiv was a developed cultured capital when Moscow was just another swamp village._ Moreover, in the Italian source of the 15th century it is likewise mentioned, that Russia is bordered by Poland to the west, Lithuania and Livonia to the north, and *Muscovy* to the east, further proving that Russia historically speaking, is an exonym of Ukraine, that was stolen by Muscovy. _Germany used to call itself the Holy Roman Empire, that didn’t mean they became the Romans, and all of a sudden had a right to claim whole of Italy and its history, but yet, that’s exactly what Russia (Muscovy) did in regards to Rus'-Ukraine, which is a horrible injustice!_
Yeah, Poland's location in what eventually (still kind of is?) a geopolitical battlefield has definitely brought with it more than its fair share of invasions, conquests, etc. Still, it's impressive the Commonwealth managed to withstand so much for so long!
i wached the (apologies to my own brain,persona,views and enything else for) putler and tukers (two great hostorians,politics,scientists,profesionals...whatever im just fcaround) interview and now this... and sudenly it striked me... by IT i meant dejavu and diarrhoea (phisical and intelectual one at the same time)... does anyone know an (FDA Aproved) medication for that??
Reading in polish tutorial: E - always the same like E in Japanese A - always the same like A in Japanese I - always lik english EE Y - like I in: This or Did C - like: TZ CZ and SZ.- like CH and SH in Charge and Short H and Ch are the same sound, and It's H Ci and Si - like Chi and Shi in Japanese. Ś and Ć - same as Japanese Shi an Chi, but with out i Ń - same as Spanish Ñ Ż and RZ are the same sound and it's like J in Portugal. Ą - nose O like in french Ę - nose E like in french
Yeah, Sweden's role in the Deluge is definitely overlooked, unless focusing on the area's regional history. How much of a role those campaigns played in the eventual downfall of the Commonwealth also doesn't get as much attention as it perhaps should.
You should unite with Commonwealth under Sigmund III Waza. That would b really empire. Multinational, strong something like Roman, Ottoman Great Britain and now USA!!! Just think about that.
We could explore whole world with Sweden ability to sail. We would have the strongest army in the world. Oh Swedes what have u done. We chose Waza to b our king and he was the rightful ruler of Sweden as well but u chose war. Eventually u lost it. And thanks to u Russia became military suoerpower and misery to a lot of great nations. To this day Europe pays coz of that, Caucasians and Huge part of Asia. With Commonwelth we could come up with new political system. Sweden army and PLC army(a specially wingd hussars) we would be unstable. Sweden,Finland,Poland,Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus and Ukraine plus Jewish people and Germans. We could b something different
Wing is on saddle, if at all. It is in the later 18thc it becomes a symbolic piece fixed to the armour. 16th and 17thc armour was of far better quality. Brass trim on a Noblemans armour? No guilding and often proofed hight quality cuirass half segmented or early full anima depending on the owners taste. This is not a opinion, it is factual. Read Radislaw Sikora"s work.
Apologizing for your bad pronunciation is ok, not making an actual effort to look up how to say anything is not. Sometimes a literal google search can help you, and often the right way to say a word is much easier than your take on it. At 13:53 you made me do a spit take 😂 wth is a sygm? sounds kinda dirty, ngl
It definitely is kind of interesting those were the names given to the respective wars when, like you point out, it was the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. My best bet is that it reflected the more dominant position of the Poles in the Commonwealth at the time.
@@GhostCountries dominant or not lol both countries wouldnt be able to survive without each other, single poland or single duchy of lithuania both would be eaten by russians even before 17 century, not to remind that grand duchy had bigger territory than poland before union, just that their geographic location meant huge treat from russia, so union had to be made because if union wasnt made both countries would have died
The part at 6:00 is false, the reason Lithuania had to cede those lands is because we wanted to join Sweden in a political union instead and Poland invaded as retaliation to the civil unrest. Thereby claiming those lands as punishment. Edit: also Lithuania was the stronger and more dominant power from the start, which allowed to set rules that only Lithuanians can own land and hold office in Lithuanian land. This in turn worked as a double edged sword because it excluded most of the citizens, thereby making Polish the more useful language to learn and use throghout the commonwealth. This then allowed Poland to become the dominant power in the union.
Oh, we've definitely got plans to cover the Ottoman Empire, along with the Sultanate of Rum, various Anatolian beyliks (like the Danishmend), and others!
The most important thing that most Poles don't know: Jagiellonian Dynasty was born with Joigala ( Jagiello ) and Sofija Alšėniškė ( Zofia Holszańska ) So it's Lithuanian and Rhutenian blood
You forgot to add that the reason for the unification of the nations was that Lithuania was constantly attacked by Moscow. Lithuanians begged for help, but when it was all over, they wanted nothing to do with Poland. Finally, the King of Poland announced that it was either union or you manage on your own.
7:44 Nonsense! In Lithuania, the official language was Old Belarusian, Old Russian. The status of the language, as well as the ban on Polish settlement, was guaranteed by the Statutes of Lithuania, in fact the first constitution in the world. Polonization was not the result of politics but a natural process. Formally, both members were equal, each had its own army, its parliament, its hetmans, its government and foreign policy, and even at an early stage the ruler of Poland did not necessarily have to become the ruler of Lithuania.
It was never a superpower. Badass people made it looks like it, but for a country this big to be able to gather smaller armies than moldova (15 times smaller country) was real shame. Kings kept giving privileges instead of centralising power. that was a shame. Instead of having civilised multireligious, multiethnic country, central and eastern europe was taken by barbaric germans and russians.
This video understimates how Libertarian the PLC was, it really was the closest thing to an Anarcho-Capitalist state ever in existence. It should not be taken at face value.
Yeah the Swedish deluge is what actually destroyed Poland-Lithuania, the country could never get itself together after that, EVERYTHING was stolen and destroyed, so many people killed. After that the country was just massive land with nothing in it. xD It's not even a question if it was worse than WWII, it simply was. It's actually amazing that Poland wasn't partitioned right after that.
The research shows that Poland spent more on wars and armies to fight wars in the East than it collected taxes from the areas in the East, so it was Poland that contributed to this interest.
No one in history has offered such an offer of partnership as Poland did instead of killing . In fact, the Lithuanian Jogaila, defeated the Teutonic Knights on the throne of Poland but did not completely destroy Prussia, which then historically ended with the militaristic Prussia destroying Poland together with Russia and Austria.
Huh, it's at exactly 4:20 😅; anyway, there's a misspelling in the video. It should be Poznań, not Pznon.
Hey, it's the day after 4/20 here and almost a year later and I just found your channel! I am moving to a Polish neighborhood in the United States with a Lithuanian population and music hall at the end of my block! I am using this video to learn more about the history these two cultures share.
Pznon XD
I found a small diamond here. Briliant work! Nice to see that part of history be more known.
PLC as a ghost empire - still true.
👍 from 🇵🇱
Thank you so much - and nice Journey pic; still a few overlooked chapters of history relating to the Commonwealth we hope to cover in future videos, actually.
This was a great video on a very overlooked former multi ethnic super power of Europe during the Early Modern Period. Tadeusz Kościuszko was also a brilliant military leader who deserves respect on par with that of Fredric the Great my opinion. It's sad that few people know who he was.
I sincerely hope this channel blows up with plenty of subscribers because it's well deserved.
Thank you so much for the comments! I fully agree and, because of that, we're probably going to make a video focusing on Tadeusz Kościuszko's story at some point; we've also got plans to cover Antonina Tomaszewska, Casimir Pulaski, Emilia Plater, and some other individuals from the Commonwealth.
The only problem with Federic was that he hated Poland and colonised it badly
Kościuszko was poor military commander. He was brilliant military engineer, moderate tactician and terrible stategist. Due to absolute lack of stategist skills to caused battles he couldn't win.
However he was brilliant military engineer. I daresay no one understood field fortification as him till gen. Lee.
Hope you like our first multipart episode; it's definitely on the longer side, but with the Commonwealth, there's just so much history to cover.
Be sure to keep an eye out for part 2!
Overall a good job, but there are some common mistakes and misconceptions, even spread by Poles. I recommend watching especially "Panel 2.2 Robert Frost" and "The Idea of the Republic in Poland-Lithuania: A Conversation with Robert Frost".
@@ChillDudelD Thanks - really appreciate honest viewer feedback; definitely will check out the videos you recommended, especially since they're both on TH-cam, and make sure to exercise due diligence in future videos on the subject!
5:08 dont mistake the Wiec / Vieche with the Sejm / Parliament.
- the first one is a tribal meeting with voting our tribes had since immerioable past (recorded in late bronze age by Greeks),
- the second one is the meeting of elders or of representatives - the thing more like Roman Senate, Polish Sejm consisted of two chambers: chamber of Senators(elders) and chamber of representatives.
11:25 one correction sir, Polish history books say that the biggest cavalry charge in history was the Battle of Komarowo against Soviet Union.
1:58 Yes, Jadwiga was crowned at the age of 10/11 as KING of Poland. Despite being crowned at such young age she never had a regant. She was one of the best rulers in polish history. She TRIPLED size of the kingdom of Poland by dimplomacy, marriage and wars. She was a great diplomat and even her enemies admitted that it was impossible to get more than she decided to give. She was also able to lead war campaigns, like when in 1387 (she was 13 at that time) she conquered Ruthenia. She was able to speak in 6 languages. She gave life to the first university in Poland (Casimir the Great started the process of its creation, but Jadwiga finished the work). Sadly she reigned only for 15 years because she died young at the age of 25/26. It's really impressive how much she was able to achieve during those 15 years and it makes you think how much she could do if she lived longer.
Loli queen :D
@@slawomirkulinski No. She was literally crowned as rex - king.
@@bifa5414 Yes, just like her sister who became a King of Hungary. I see that the Poles also allowed a woman to become King. It is interesting that in the Hungarian Kingdom at that time, fiúsítás was still fashionable.
Fiúsítás=Prefection
Prefection also promotion of a daughter to a son (Hungarian: fiúsítás; Latin: praefectio in filium), was a royal prerogative in the Kingdom of Hungary, whereby the sovereign granted the status of a son to a nobleman's daughter, authorizing her to inherit her father's landed property and transmitting noble status to her children even if she married a commoner. Such a daughter was called a praefecta in Latin.
@@zvata2017 Oh, that's very interesting. I only knew that Mary was also crowned as king but didn't have idea about the rest ;)
@@bifa5414 There was no fiúsítás/Perfection outside of Hungary. If I know right. That's why many people don't even know about it. Louise the Great even agreed with the Pope, so it was accepted outside of Hungary. If I remember correctly, there were too many wars and too many girls were born. Louise the Great also only had daughters. Several King and noble man in Hungary had only just daughters. Although as far as I know it existed around the time the Kingdom was established. The conditions were there, but it happened many times.
Maria Theresa also accepted to become King of Hungary.
I neglected to leave a comment here the first time I watched this video, so I came to rectify it, and upon the second viewing, I noticed the Monty Python reference at 7:40. For those who don't know, "Mój poduszkowiec jest pełen węgorzy" means "My hovercraft is full of eels".
Oh, wow; you’ve got a keen eye for Easter eggs in our videos - there’s quite a few!
Thanks for making this, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is my favorite country and I want to learn more.
Oh, no problem whatsoever - thanks for commenting; it’s a really interesting chapter of history that doesn’t get as much coverage as it should. We’ll definitely be revisiting the Commonwealth in the future and some other related topics too!
1. Polish Lithuanian Union prof. Robert Frost th-cam.com/video/MTrbR4stbhY/w-d-xo.html
2. Commonwealth of Diverse Cultures (Poland-Lithuania) prof. Norman Davis th-cam.com/video/Hl7t19eXy88/w-d-xo.html
3. The Noblemen's Democracy of Poland and Lithuania th-cam.com/video/TW_hcZCY6QM/w-d-xo.html 4. Gaude Mater Polonia , the first Polish anthem th-cam.com/video/Wv8LriCtwxE/w-d-xo.html
Thanks for you job ! Greetings from Lithuania!
Wow, your channel is so underrated. I really thought I was watching someone with a few hundred thousand subscribers, but you have only over 200!
Wish you best of luck in making videos.
Thank you so much Krivis and that definitely is the goal 😅 - seems to be happening slowly, but steadily. We had a considerable bump in subscribers/views this past month!
Krivis, so did I.
Great video! I appreciate you giving some credit to us Lithuanians in the commonweatlh, It's pretty annoying seeing people attribute it all to poland.
Hey, thanks Vapor Koldun and yeah, Lithuania does (rather unfortunately) often get overlooked when discussing the Commonwealth’s history; on that note, we’re actually planning to do an episode proper about the Grand Duchy at some point, which is more than deserving of its own video!
Oh stop, it has been proved that grand duchy of Lithuania is today's belarus. You just stole the name of the country. Look at the population of the commonwealth 4,5m poles,3,5 Ukrainians (Cossacks)1,5m Belarusians and only 0,7 "Lithuanians" called then and now Baltic people, pribalty or Żmudzini in polish. There's a deal between today's belarus and Lithuania that the grand duchy of Lithuania was Belarusian-lithuanian state, not Lithuanian, your ancestors were in minority. Google it, stop rewriting history.
@@pawel4539 How about you fucking read some history and realize, that the Duchy was STARTED by lithuanians, but expanding southwards put a lot of Ruthenians into the population, obviously making Lithuanian a minority. It's almost like the Lithuanian government back then just gradually became more ruthenian, writing the "Statut" in Ruthenian. What I was saying before was that literally NOONE talked about the huge contribution the Lithuanians gave for STARTING the duchy. Nationalism wasn't a thing back then, and ruthenians were honorary lithuanians that fought for the duchy. You're attributing it all to belarus and poland, like the Bellarusians could have even done that with the golden horde, you trogolodyte. I know Belarus had a lot to do with it, but shut the fuck up.
And I'm not saying it wasn't started by Lithuanians I can even say their contribution to a commonwealth was a monarchy. But I will be always fighting with people saying that 5% of total population played a biggest role. Check every commonwealth related video and read what your fellow Lithuanians have to say taking everything into their account having nothing to do with those people, sadly we have nothing to do with them too after all those years of wars, occupation, murdering of all polish elites. It's just history, beautiful but history.
@@pawel4539 I get that belarus has barely any history, but to claim the grand duchy as their own basically not caring about how the most important cities were built by lithuanians. We can share this history, noone said we couldn't.
Litwo! Ojczyzno moja! ty jesteś jak zdrowie.
Ile cię trzeba cenić, ten tylko się dowie,
Kto cię stracił. Dziś piękność twą w całej ozdobie
Widzę i opisuję, bo tęsknię po tobie.
Very informative indeed well done guys keep it up the hard work
I really find this interesting. Such a huge Empire, that little is taught about. The only modern reference I am familiar with is a very weird movie called Tarus Bulba😂Looking forward to the next episode
Thanks; definitely an overlooked chapter in history.
I never heard of Taras Bulba before, but just looked into it a little bit - pretty interesting historical novella / movie dealing with the Cossacks. Although, it sounds like the movie - there's a few, actually - differs from the original text.
Taras Bulba is rather quite bad from a historical point of view. And as a movie Ogniem i mieczem aka With Fire and Sword (/watch?v=PwrlrfSQghM) is better at depicting that conflict. Although historically not entirely accurate as the books it's based on are more of a novel taking inspiration from history, but yet still more accurate and better than Taras Bulba...
@@ChillDudelD Thanks for the info! Just looked into With Fire and Sword (film and novel) a bit; in terms of the books, would you recommend The Deluge and Fire in the Steppe as well?
@@GhostCountries Yes definitely, well they are part of the same Trilogy. Speaking of the Deluge, this documentary is good and very eye opening - /watch?v=_NZ5Fbsq1v0. I also recommend watching a not so long ago released documentary-drama Born For the Saber (/watch?v=Lqf5vuJqQv0) that shows off the vibe and traditions of the PLC quite well.
P.S. Bit too much at once huh? :D
@@ChillDudelD Will have check those out; and yeah, it's a lot...haha, but still really appreciated! ;)
Kraków didn't replace Vilnius. Throughout the entire Union both Kraków and Vilnius were capitals of the respective countries. Warsaw was the capital of the Union, just like Brussels today, but Kraków and Vilnius both kept their regional capital status, and actually the sejm was moved to Warsaw so that the Lithuanians had it closer.
Honestly, it’s interesting how the Commonwealth in more than a few regards paralleled the EU, like you pointed out!
@@GhostCountriesCommonwealth was nothing like commie loving EU, although its fall was caused by similar problem that EU is facing today like multi-culturalism, arrogance of political class, bribery and corruption.
@@nieczerwony how was PL-LIT commonwealth fall caused by multi-culturalism can you explain?
@@kube410 because it allowed hungarians or lithuanians influence the country in many ways. Poland was indistinguishable from the west up until the Renaissance after which it increasingly became more eastern in looks, even adopting some middle eastern look
if there was no multi-culturalism it would've stayed true to itself. But the outsiders ruled it and changed it.
@@nexor7809 Bullshit. Before christianity poland was totally eastern. Ever since adopting christianity Poland was always a mixture of east and west culturally. Poland was a bit late to adopting feudalism and used a "drużyna" system that was more aligned with the eastern norms until we adopted feudalism. The adoption of middle eastern look that you speak of is not really about the middle east but it comes from polish szlachta's fascination with sarmatians who were a people who once inhabited our lands and polish nobility saw them as their ancestors.
What do you mean stayed true to itself? Polands identity was pretty much always multicultural. We have lusitians in the west kashubians in the north silesians and górals in the south and once we also saw ruthenians and lithuanians same way. That allience of central european cultures made us strong enough to push back germans and russians for centuries. It wasnt multi culturalism that was at fault of destroying the country but corruption, bad laws, and weak leadership that allowed russians to plant a puppet king and weaken sejm even more.
What a great channel, how is this not bigger?!
Slowly, but surely we’re getting there! Just passed 20K and am currently aiming for 50K by the end of this coming year.
Great video again!
Hey, glad to know you liked the video; there's plenty more European countries we'll be covering in the future too!
@@GhostCountries nice! I really like these more in-depth videos and it was great!
Just a small correction here. The Lithuanian language fell out of (official) use long before the establishement of the Commonwealth. In the Grand Dutchy of Lithuania itself they stopped using it in favor of the Ruthenian language. Ruthenian chancery language, or Chancery Ruthenian language was a variety of this language, used in official and legal documents of the Grand Dutchy of Lithuania. It stayed official language of administration in the Lithuanian part of the Commonwealth up to 1699. The polonisation wasn't officially ordained and persued. It was simply that capital was in Warsaw, the University - in Krakow. The main port - in Gdansk. Just us today if you want to achieve something in the world of bussiness or politics- you have to know english, so in the Polish-Lithuanian Commowealth it was a good idea to know polish. Simply - all the centres were located in the Polish part of the country.
If you are wondering why the Lithuanian administration would on its own volition abandon their own language, the answer is simple. Ethnic Lithuania was quite small, and all the lands they conquered were Ruthenian. Moreover - they were more advanced. As a result, in the high days of the pre Commonwealth Grand Dutchy of Lithuania, ethnic Lithuanians made up just 10 % of the population. They naturally Ruthenised (at least the noble did), in just the same way, as they later Polonised.
10:55 If you are frightened by a slight gust of wind through a straw, then you are right, even during loudness measurements there are practically no changes with or without wings. Hussars wore wings made from the skins of wild animals, such as leopards, to look cool and menacing, as if they were being attacked by a deity, something not of this earth.
Thank you for a great work!
Oh, wow; thank you so much! We're planning to cover other aspects of Polish history in future videos too.
@@GhostCountries Great. You might find some here th-cam.com/users/PolandDailyLive
Im polish and i want to give a very short lesson on pronunciation the w’s in polish are pronounced like V’s and the j’s are pronounced y. Hope you learned something about the polish language
Hey, thanks for letting us know! We'll definitely keep that in mind since we plan to cover more topics dealing with Poland (and Eastern Europe, more generally) in time.
3:00 The phrase is "personal union". Two separate states with separate law and administration but the same single ruler.
OMG where did you learn of it?? My kids are half Polish and as I was busy at work they know next to nothing of it.. THANK YOU...
Oh, thank you so much; really glad to hear that someone learned something new from the video!
There's a lot of material on the Commonwealth out there, but I'd recommend checking out The Great Courses / Wondrium's "A History of Eastern Europe." It's more of a broad overview of Eastern European history, still definitely worth a watch if you've got time.
Wonderful 👍
That's a very beautiful painting of Jadwiga
The Bar Confederates. One of their leaders was Kazimierz Pulaski. Who would go on to become the father of the American cavalry.
True and over in Illinois, his legacy is celebrated in a local holiday called "Casimir Pulaski Day" on the first Monday of March.
I definitely think we'll cover Pulaski's story in a proper episode at some point - we have a new miniseries coming up soon that we're calling Ghost Biographies.
7:40 The last sentence that popped up? Someone had a lot of fun with this. It says: "My hovercraft is full of eels".
In Polish the letter "W" is pronounced like the English "V". So Stanisław is pronounced "Stan • i • slav". Outside of that good job
Oh, thanks; that honestly is good to know for when we do some future episodes dealing with Poland and/or Eastern Europe in general.
Actually it would be "Stann-e-swav" because "ł" is the same as "W"
@@Momma27 Ah interesting. Thanks for the lesson. It was also spoken as "slav" to me but maybe that came from the fact that Polish had been mixed with our English and unfortunately some lasting Russian influences from the time before my family came stateside during the partitions.
I use Google Translate to perfect my Polish pronunciation. Is it reliable?
Great video.Love it
Thank you Joyce!!!
You need to understand that Poland didn't have to force to learn polish as USA, England and Germany don't force anybody to learn english or german. As you underlined Poland was flourishing culturally, so other nations wanted to learn this language to have access to it.
We actually had another commenter bring up this point and retreading a bit here: I'd agree the Commonwealth’s western portion was, unquestionably, more developed and exerted greater pull over nobles back east - although, some officials continued to speak Lithuanian and Sigismund II even reportedly maintained both Polish- / Lithuanian-speaking courts. So, yeah; while I would agree there wasn’t forced Polonization, there were broad direct and indirect factors that, for lack of a better way of phrasing it, influenced most nobles of the time to adopt the Polish language (or, at least, have a working knowledge of it), among other things.
@@GhostCountries yes. There was even time, when nobles in Moscow were speaking Polish same as Poles in French. Anyway, good work. Very apperciated.
@@niemamnicku1359 The history of the broader Eastern European region is just so interesting and - like you point out - historically there was so much fluidity.
Oh, and thank you so much!
@@GhostCountries oh yes. It is. Unfortunately we were behind the iron curtain for long time so west doesnt know our history. May I ask you where do you come from?
Do you need any help with finding interesting stories about Poland?
@@niemamnicku1359 Oh, exactly and yeah, no problem! There's two of us working on the channel: one from Germany and the USA.
And, of course; we're always open to suggestions on topics to cover. Actually, we're going to be setting up a Discord server soon-ish, which should make it a lot easier to comment, share, etc. You should join once it's up - we'll be making a post on the page's community tab.
Despite all this, Poland's national anthem is called "Poland Is Not Yet Lost. Gotta love the fighting spirit, especially in this era where Poland looks to be NATO's bulwark. God bless Poland
I was thinking of other “ghost countries” like Burgundy, Aragon, the gothic kingdoms. And then I realized how vague that term was, most nations of history are lost to the annals of time.
...which just means we have that much more to cover 😉; honestly though, Burgundy, Aragon, and the various Gothic kingdoms would all make for fascinating episodes!
Commonwealth shall rise again. Even stronger than before. PL❤️UA❤️BL❤️LT❤️LV
Oh, boy...
Geography dictates for alliance between PL, UA, LT and BL. Without it, separately we will have much less sovereignty. Greetings form Lithuania.
Nie
Not UA. It is literally Nazi country with primary anti-polish establishment.
I love the idea of a elective monarcy
Not really no. Elective monarchy/democracy was one of the factors leading to later partition of PLC. 3rd may constitution (first in Europe and 2nd in the world) actually brought back hereditary monarchy because it was know that elective king is disasterous idea.
underrated channel
Thanks man, we're slowly getting up there...but it definitely is slow. 😅
When the Union of Lublin happened, the official language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, was Ruthenian. That's why taking about the suppression of the Lithuanian language or culture, by the Poles is a bit unfair. There was no forced polonization back then. The Western, Polish part of the Commonwealth had greater cities, more densely populated area's and more advanced agriculture. That's why many nobles in the East choose Polish culture and language, for they considered it to be superior.
To be fair, that’s a valid point; Ruthenian / Chancery Slavonic was used by many nobles in the Grand Duchy, while Latin and German (to a lesser extent) were also used in some capacity. Lithuanian was largely, though not exclusively, limited to Lithuania proper and its usage did exhibit fluidity over the ensuing years.
The Commonwealth’s western portion, unquestionably, was more developed and thus exerted greater pull over nobles back east. Interestingly though, some officials continued to speak Lithuanian quite regularly and Sigismund II reportedly maintained both Polish- / Lithuanian-speaking courts. So, while I would agree there wasn’t forced Polonization, there were broad direct and indirect factors that, for lack of a better way of phrasing it, influenced nobles of the time to adopt the Polish language (or, at least, have a working knowledge of it), among other things. 🤔🙂
@@GhostCountries I believe you can compare the union between Poland and Lithuania to that of England and Scotland, where also no deliberate governmental program was introduced to forcefully Anglicize the Scots. Polish just sort of replaced Latin as the common language for the Commonwealth, and a new common "Polish" (gente Lithuanus, natione Polonus) identity arose which just like the British identity wasn't focused on your ethnic origin but rather on the common citizenship ideals of the Rzeczpospolita (PLC).
Naturally, just like the English nobility often had the upper hand, likewise the Polish nobility in the western Parts of the Commonwealth were at first usually more dominant than their Lithuanian and Ruthenian counterparts in the east. However it should also be remembered that some of the originally Lithuanian or Ruthenian upper nobility became really powerful within the Commonwealth, even more powerful than ethnically Polish lords from the west (e.g. the House of Czartoryski) and I'm sure that some Scottish or Welsh families were able to achieve a similar position within Great Britain as well.
All in all, the process of a sort of a cultural unification which occurred in Poland-Lithuania & the United Kingdom between the 15th and 19th centuries cannot be directly compared to the actually brutal and forceful attempts made by the Prussian/German and Russian occupying forces to fully Germanize or Russify the former subjects of the Polish-Lithuanian Crown after the Partitions.
@@martinledermann1862 Honestly, that's a pretty good historical comparison I hadn't thought of before.
We might explore the subject further on the channel in another video relating to the Polish population transfers (1944-1946), Operation Vistula, etc.
@@GhostCountries Operation Vistula wasn't about transferring Polish population... what are you talking about ?
@@SouIkey Of course it was. Lemkos and Boykos are/were Polish people.
Great video I just subscribed
Thank you so much Andy!
@@GhostCountries you definitely deserve more subscribers
Great video, thanks!
Oh, thank you so much; it was really interesting looking into the Commonwealth's story and you can be sure we'll revisit it at some point again!
7:39 this cracked me up 😂😂😂
This video is missing an important point. Polish view on democracy. Democracy in Poland was created by the fact that King had to campaign to have support. Upper aristocracy (Magnateria) was more powerful than the King leading to the power balance Magnates King + lower nobility. To increase power of lower nobility King was giving rights and privileges. As kings were elected they became more like a lifetime presidents than actual monarchs. This caused escalation in granted rights and privileges as they didn't care much about what happens after they pass away (their children were not automatically heirs to the throne).
From this you can see a clear picture of Polish Democracy.
1) We don't care where the ruler came from
2) Ruler has to benefit us
3) Ruler is our servant
One day I’ll form this in EU4
Great video, I'm always happy when our multi-cultural alliance and state gets recognition! Small correction at 4:20 - the first city on this picture city is Poznań ;-)
Oh, thank you so much; the story of the Commonwealth is fascinating and undoubtedly deserves more attention. We do plan (eventually) on making a video about the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Ruthenia, and other related topics!
Also, yeah; unfortunately, we noticed that misspelling after the video was uploaded and can't fix it in YT's editor...I might just pin a comment or something. 😅
We need a good tv series ambiented in this country
Oh, definitely...you know, Netflix actually has a few pretty good docudrama historical series, would be interesting to see one set in the Commonwealth - maybe dealing with the Battle of Vienna (1683) or the Deluge. 🤔
I agree the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth deserves more spotlight when it comes to its history. A Netflix series would be great, but honestly I think it should even have a Hollywood film with A- list actors in the style of the Polish movie With Fire and Sword. The best chance of this ever happening would probably have to start with a Polish-American director deciding to take on something like this. Hopefully there is a respectable movie on this topic someday.
I dont think we can call PLC a "country"
I came here after watching Ogniem i mieczem and realizing I knew nothing about this country!
PZNON :D hahahaha i laughed so hard I made my neighbour shouting on me to not be so loud
Yeah; we unfortunately noticed that misspelling after the video was uploaded and can't fix it in YT's editor...think I'll just pin a comment or something, but glad you got a laugh out of it. 😅
My ancestors were Polish Winged Hussars at Vienna, and Zaporozhian Cossacks. I like to fight! Go figure.
Oh, that's awesome!
Wow... Now that quite an explosive gene pool.
Thanks for great content. Please tell me what is this theme song starting 10:20
I'm waiting for a day when Hollywood will make epic movie about winged Hussars, please
Poznań (pronounced: po-z-nine) is misspelled, Lwów (Lvoov) Warsaw correct in English. Its Polish spelling is Warszawa, pronounced (var-sha-va). Finally Kraków is spelled correctly in English although some people pronounce it as Krakov (pronounced krakoov in Polish).
Yeah, we unfortunately noticed that Poznań was misspelled at bit too late (i.e. after publishing 😅), but thanks for letting us know about the pronunciations! Despite us both speaking a few languages, neither of us knows Polish. I think we've gotten better with that in later videos though - like that covering Wallachia.
Actually, regarding Kraków, the actual historical spelling used by Anglo-Saxons has always been CRACOW (coming from its Latin name Cracovia).
The modern spelling variant of 'Krakow" looks more exotic to the Western eye and as a Polish citizen I'd prefer it if it could be avoided but I guess we've already gone so far into the realm of political correctness that it can no longer be reversed even though it doesn't make any sense (the inhabitant of Kraków is still called a 'Cracovian' in English and nobody is criticizing the French for their ongoing use of 'Cracovie', so it's only the English variant that stupid people focused on due to the global dominance of that language).
6:10 I don't know why you think Poles demanded land from Lithuania in exchange for military help. The Commonwealth was created because the last King from the Lithuanian Jagiellon dynasty knew he wouldn't have any children and he wanted to preserve the unity of both countries. Uniting the countries meant that the Lithuanian nobles would get promoted in their rights and achieve full democratic freedoms just like Polish nobles did. The Lithuanian magnates opposed the idea and that's why the King cut the territory in half and annexed it to Poland because most of the great latifundia of those magnates were in Ukraine. They had to agree for the federation if they didn't want to lose connection to their land. No one took their land from them though. In Poland rights of the nobles were sacred and that included one's property rights. A Polish King couldn't pay a visit to a noble without a prior invitation not to mention taking one's land. There were however "królewszczyzny" (royal lands) that a king could give to nobles only temporary for their good work or military valour. One of such guys was Chmielnicki's father and when he died his son made a Cossack uprising because he didn't understand the word "temporary". Note that when later Sobieski gave land to the Tatars it was his private land. That's why they can still live there till today. Otherwise Polish kings really had limited powers. The reason why every elective king built his own palace in Warsaw suburbs was because they knew no royal castle belonged to them. The royal castles, land, royal (so called "free") towns all belonged to the State. The only reason the last Jagiellon could divide the land of Lithuania in half was because up to that point the Lithuanian nobles didn't have the same rights as Polish nobles, while the King as the Lithuanian Great Duke had much more power in Lithuania than as a Polish King in Poland.
Interesting :)
Thank you!
Most notably wings protected Hussars from lassos that Ottomans used to take riders down
@GhostCountries - has part 2 come out yet?
Yep, it's on the channel!
that frame of Jadwiga comes from Civilization VI, not Civilization IV
Oops! That's a mistake, but thanks for pointing it out.
I know my history, but yeah you phrased it like some Game of Thrones shit. :D damn boooi
Oh, thanks man; you should check our Despotate of Epirus and/or the Republic of Ezo, kind of a similar vibe! 😄
@@GhostCountries will do. Certainly
Ah yes, the famous city of Pznon
Oops, that's definitely a typo 😅
👍👍👍
Thanks!!!
Moj poduszkowiec jest pełen węgorzy ❤
😂
Louis the Great did not want Jadwiga (Hedvig in Hungary) to rule. He always wanted the throne for his other daughter and even found a suitable husband for her. It is interesting that in the Hungarian Kingdom at that time, fiúsítás was still fashionable. His other daughter was also crowned King because on paper she was a Praefecta.
Fiúsítás=Prefection
Prefection also promotion of a daughter to a son (Hungarian: fiúsítás; Latin: praefectio in filium), was a royal prerogative in the Kingdom of Hungary, whereby the sovereign granted the status of a son to a nobleman's daughter, authorizing her to inherit her father's landed property and transmitting noble status to her children even if she married a commoner. Such a daughter was called a praefecta in Latin.
Just to clarify: it was the biggest country in Europe of the time with 1 million square kilometres, not 400 thousand..
he said 400 sq miles
@@roysmith8679 You are right! My bad
4:23 Pznon? You mean Poznań, right?
Yeah; unfortunately, we noticed that misspelling after the video was uploaded and can't fix it in YT's editor...I think I'll pin a comment though. 😅
_Something important to know, for all who are interested in history and/or support Ukraine:_
_Rus' ought not to be confused with modern “Russia”, which derives its name from the Rus' but historically is a completely different state, which almost all its existence was at war with the Rus'._
_Just like the Holy Roman Empire was actually Germany, “Russia” is actually Muscovy, despite their best attempts to convince everybody otherwise._
_Its name “Russia" received only in the 18th century, when Peter I simply changed Muscovy’s name into the “All Russian Empire” (Russia originates from Rosia, name used by the Greek Orthodox Clergy in regards to Rus')_
_Under the reign of Cathrine II Muscovites where even punished for continuing to identify as Muscovites, and were forced to call themselves Russian._
_Lands that Russia (Muscovy) claims were part of the original Rus', but actually weren't, are Novgorod, Suzdal, and Ryazan, since in historical texts of XI-XII centuries they are mentioned as separate entities from Rus'. They can be considered parts of extended Rus', although their culture was distinct from main Rus'._
_In 1493, Muscovite duke Ivan III appointed himself to be the Great Ruler of All Rus'. No other kings acknowledged that. From that point on Muscovy started to make false claims on Rus' ownership._
_“Russia” is an offshoot of Ukraine and not the other way round, despite what Soviet and Russian (Muscovite) historians have been trying to say for years. A Slavicised Finnic, then later, Mongolized offshoot. Kyiv was a developed cultured capital when Moscow was just another swamp village._
Moreover, in the Italian source of the 15th century it is likewise mentioned, that Russia is bordered by Poland to the west, Lithuania and Livonia to the north, and *Muscovy* to the east, further proving that Russia historically speaking, is an exonym of Ukraine, that was stolen by Muscovy.
_Germany used to call itself the Holy Roman Empire, that didn’t mean they became the Romans, and all of a sudden had a right to claim whole of Italy and its history, but yet, that’s exactly what Russia (Muscovy) did in regards to Rus'-Ukraine, which is a horrible injustice!_
It really sucks that poland got beat down so much in history, to think that one point they where a force to be reckoned with.
Yeah, Poland's location in what eventually (still kind of is?) a geopolitical battlefield has definitely brought with it more than its fair share of invasions, conquests, etc. Still, it's impressive the Commonwealth managed to withstand so much for so long!
@@GhostCountries Kinda sucks that it wont happen again, but it'd also be interesting to see a Modern Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth again
@@nekomasteryoutube3232 Yeah, I kind of think Intermarium was probably the closest we'll get to that in our timeline, but I guess you do never know!
@@nekomasteryoutube3232 lithuanians dont really like poland and consider them as occupants after 1919, zero chance that union could be made
🇱🇹💪🇵🇱💪
i wached the (apologies to my own brain,persona,views and enything else for) putler and tukers (two great hostorians,politics,scientists,profesionals...whatever im just fcaround) interview and now this... and sudenly it striked me... by IT i meant dejavu and diarrhoea (phisical and intelectual one at the same time)... does anyone know an (FDA Aproved) medication for that??
Reading in polish tutorial:
E - always the same like E in Japanese
A - always the same like A in Japanese
I - always lik english EE
Y - like I in: This or Did
C - like: TZ
CZ and SZ.- like CH and SH in Charge and Short
H and Ch are the same sound, and It's H
Ci and Si - like Chi and Shi in Japanese.
Ś and Ć - same as Japanese Shi an Chi, but with out i
Ń - same as Spanish Ñ
Ż and RZ are the same sound and it's like J in Portugal.
Ą - nose O like in french
Ę - nose E like in french
Lithuania was big on the map, but i wouldn't call them superpower
They was beating germans,russians, mongols,pols,sweeds...
I got the 1K like sweet 👌
WOOT! 🎊
9:04 That's the reason why Russia celebrates its independence from Poland
2:00 we were woke before you knew you were sleeping.
😂😂😂
"Mój poduszkowiec jest pełen węgorzy" hate when happen to me too :|
I know, all too often! 🤣
you wrote civilization 4 instead of civilization 6 at the two minute mark
well i dont know about the mosques part lol
as a swede i am shocked we did this to poland
Yeah, Sweden's role in the Deluge is definitely overlooked, unless focusing on the area's regional history. How much of a role those campaigns played in the eventual downfall of the Commonwealth also doesn't get as much attention as it perhaps should.
We forgive you because of your great band Sabaton👍
For example, bronze lions that stand by the royal castle in Stockholm are looted from a Polish palace.
You should unite with Commonwealth under Sigmund III Waza. That would b really empire. Multinational, strong something like Roman, Ottoman Great Britain and now USA!!! Just think about that.
We could explore whole world with Sweden ability to sail. We would have the strongest army in the world. Oh Swedes what have u done. We chose Waza to b our king and he was the rightful ruler of Sweden as well but u chose war. Eventually u lost it. And thanks to u Russia became military suoerpower and misery to a lot of great nations. To this day Europe pays coz of that, Caucasians and Huge part of Asia. With Commonwelth we could come up with new political system. Sweden army and PLC army(a specially wingd hussars) we would be unstable. Sweden,Finland,Poland,Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus and Ukraine plus Jewish people and Germans. We could b something different
Wing is on saddle, if at all.
It is in the later 18thc it becomes a symbolic piece fixed to the armour.
16th and 17thc armour was of far better quality.
Brass trim on a Noblemans armour? No guilding and often proofed hight quality cuirass half segmented or early full anima depending on the owners taste.
This is not a opinion, it is factual.
Read Radislaw Sikora"s work.
Husars didn't wear the wongs in battle, the wings were primarily ceremonial come on man
one mistake, you show russia , where was moskovia. rus is in ukraine side
every video tell different story.
one thing is clear if not this two countries europe and russia would probably be speaking Turkish or Mongolian …
European history would've, unquestionably, been very different without the Commonwealth.
0:18 cossack is not an ethnic distinction tohugh
Apologizing for your bad pronunciation is ok, not making an actual effort to look up how to say anything is not. Sometimes a literal google search can help you, and often the right way to say a word is much easier than your take on it. At 13:53 you made me do a spit take 😂 wth is a sygm? sounds kinda dirty, ngl
I think 1410 is a good timeline for understanding the Putin -Ukraine War of 2022-
For some reason TH-cam put a scratchy line through Ukraine War of 2022
Yeah 😅, I honestly have no idea why that happened; it's pretty random.
Kinda bias, when wars are called Polish instead of Polish-Lithuanian
It definitely is kind of interesting those were the names given to the respective wars when, like you point out, it was the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. My best bet is that it reflected the more dominant position of the Poles in the Commonwealth at the time.
@@GhostCountries dominant or not lol both countries wouldnt be able to survive without each other, single poland or single duchy of lithuania both would be eaten by russians even before 17 century, not to remind that grand duchy had bigger territory than poland before union, just that their geographic location meant huge treat from russia, so union had to be made because if union wasnt made both countries would have died
The author seems to have a little problem with chronology
*Poznan pls
The part at 6:00 is false, the reason Lithuania had to cede those lands is because we wanted to join Sweden in a political union instead and Poland invaded as retaliation to the civil unrest. Thereby claiming those lands as punishment.
Edit: also Lithuania was the stronger and more dominant power from the start, which allowed to set rules that only Lithuanians can own land and hold office in Lithuanian land. This in turn worked as a double edged sword because it excluded most of the citizens, thereby making Polish the more useful language to learn and use throghout the commonwealth. This then allowed Poland to become the dominant power in the union.
Ottoman History ( Turkey )
Oh, we've definitely got plans to cover the Ottoman Empire, along with the Sultanate of Rum, various Anatolian beyliks (like the Danishmend), and others!
The most important thing that most Poles don't know: Jagiellonian Dynasty was born with Joigala ( Jagiello ) and Sofija Alšėniškė ( Zofia Holszańska ) So it's Lithuanian and Rhutenian blood
Lol literally every Pole knows that Jegiellos are Lithuanian
European Union 1.0 ;)
You forgot to add that the reason for the unification of the nations was that Lithuania was constantly attacked by Moscow. Lithuanians begged for help, but when it was all over, they wanted nothing to do with Poland. Finally, the King of Poland announced that it was either union or you manage on your own.
Lietuva Vilnius
7:44 Nonsense! In Lithuania, the official language was Old Belarusian, Old Russian. The status of the language, as well as the ban on Polish settlement, was guaranteed by the Statutes of Lithuania, in fact the first constitution in the world. Polonization was not the result of politics but a natural process. Formally, both members were equal, each had its own army, its parliament, its hetmans, its government and foreign policy, and even at an early stage the ruler of Poland did not necessarily have to become the ruler of Lithuania.
It was never a superpower. Badass people made it looks like it, but for a country this big to be able to gather smaller armies than moldova (15 times smaller country) was real shame. Kings kept giving privileges instead of centralising power. that was a shame. Instead of having civilised multireligious, multiethnic country, central and eastern europe was taken by barbaric germans and russians.
disclaimer polish words
This video understimates how Libertarian the PLC was, it really was the closest thing to an Anarcho-Capitalist state ever in existence. It should not be taken at face value.
lol. Lithuanians are accustomed to mispronunciations
Yeah the Swedish deluge is what actually destroyed Poland-Lithuania, the country could never get itself together after that, EVERYTHING was stolen and destroyed, so many people killed. After that the country was just massive land with nothing in it. xD It's not even a question if it was worse than WWII, it simply was. It's actually amazing that Poland wasn't partitioned right after that.
lithuania was born on samogotian land, bat not on lithuanian belorusian.
superpower is a bit anachronistic
11:17 Lithuanians didn't take part in battle of Vienna. Ask them why they weren't there.
I just read they got there late
@@closetglobe.IRGUN.NW0 Exactly. Weeks after the battle was over and won. Very common when they had to fight for a common foe, not just their own.
for Lithuania its was big mistake to make union with slavic poland... from it benefited only poland... very sad
You are joking ???
The research shows that Poland spent more on wars and armies to fight wars in the East than it collected taxes from the areas in the East, so it was Poland that contributed to this interest.
Likewise, the largest oligarchy and the rise of great magnates that led to the pathologization of democracy came from the east
The nobility in the common state was also composed only of half ethnic Poles, and then much less.
No one in history has offered such an offer of partnership as Poland did instead of killing . In fact, the Lithuanian Jogaila, defeated the Teutonic Knights on the throne of Poland but did not completely destroy Prussia, which then historically ended with the militaristic Prussia destroying Poland together with Russia and Austria.