Why did The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth Collapse?

Why did Poland-Lithuania Collapse?

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♦Script & Research :
Skylar J. Gordon

Big Thank you to:
Николай Димитров, Tobias Tron, Mahmoud Shahin, Justin Bourke

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#History #Documentary

[flowrsh]

lots of love to my polish brothers from lithuania

[p.s]

thank you for this video. Finally someone made a video on PLC and didn't just read some Wikipedia articles to source it. Thank you for calling It Poland-Lithuania and not just Poland for short. It's always sad that most people just forget the Lithuanian side of the history and of the commonwealth. The video made good observations of the structure of the state.

[woody_]

I think this country was responsible for keeping peace and balance between the east and the west of Europe. Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - european peacekeeper of the past.

[MalikF]

To me the two biggest reasons what lead to the collapse 1) geography being surrounded by very powerful neighbors, and having no natural frontiers can really do damage. 2) the Librium Vito all it takes a single bribe to mess up an entire piece of legislation of much needed reform

[gorilladisco]

1:00 Lithuania used to be THAT big!?! Wow 😳

[jvnardin]

Frist from Brazil, Good Bless The brave Poles and Lithuanians protected the West from the Mongols and resisted Marxism, brave warriors🇧🇷🇵🇱🇱🇹❤

[boleczzz]

Every country would collapse if invaded by all its neighbours: Moscovia from east, Prussia from west, Austria from south and Sweden from north

[bifa]

At it's peak The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was 1.000.000 square meters and it was the biggest country in Europe (much more than the biggest country in Europe right now. It included today's Poland, Lithuania, Latwia, Belarus, over 80% of Ukraine, half of Estonia and a little bit of Russia.
Poland and Lithuania were united in one form or another basically from 1386 till very recently. There was even a period when they had access to 3 different seas).
First they were in union from 1386 (Union of Krewo) when Jadwiga (female king of Poland) married Jogaila (grand duke of Lithuania), after them the coutries always had one ruler.
Then from 1569 (Union of Lublin) they truly became one country known as Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Then in 1795, as a result of the partitions, they disappeared from the maps for over 100 years.
Officially they separeted in 1918 when after WW1 they came back as saparate countries.
Then WW2 happened and they disappeared again, came back under Russian influence, they regained their full freedom from Russia only little over 30 years ago.

[SteffenTimo-diid]

I strongly recommend Schwerpunkt's videos on Polish-Lithuanian warfare on the subject

[whatscout]

Poland is such a beautiful and historically rich country to visit. cannot recommend enough.

[wisemankugelmemicus]

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth collapsed because of the Swedish Deluge and the resulting land grabs and partitions thereof

Look it up, 4 million people died....in the 1660s.

[Kamil-kvlv]

In the beginning of XVII century Commonwealth was at its peak and on a way to rule east, tried to set rules in Sweden and Russia. Battle of Khotyn was the start of collapse. Even as a great succes at that time it was too expensive and affected next events. Commonwealths decline in power combined with modernizations of Gustav changed the fate of east Europe, they became the strongest player on east. Cossack uprise with support from Russia, and swedish raids was a fatal blow to Commonwealth. Wars 1648-1667 on commonwealths lands much reduced its economy and population.

[tkanieski]

5:50 "... short-lived Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth." Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania had been joined together for more than four hundred years. The Swedish invasion during the Deluge was far more devastating than the Russian invasion and extended as far South as Krakow, but only the Russian conquest is shown.

[kurzemitemanamila]

Why is Vienna called Vilnius in 0:24 lmao

[Bemen]

The colour of Austria makes it look like a lake

[MAD]

The effects of the Cossack rebellion is still felt today.

[Deailon]

The maps for the later XVIIth Century are bizarrely wrong.
King Władysław IV died in 1648 at the very start of the Chmielnicki Uprising, which made the Cossacks go from militant protest to open revolt. The relations between the late king and Cossacks were good and there was a chance for negotiations, but when there was no king much of the state was in turmoil and new possibilities emerged.

During most of the Polish-Muscovite War and the Deluge (plus the Rakoczy attack), there was a new king: John II Casimir. He was not popular in military circles, but in the end, he won those wars. For a time Poland-Lithuania was almost completely lost, but there was no long-term occupation of the eastern part of the country (at least not up to Lviv and Vilnius!), as falsely shown on the maps. This is the farthest extent of Russian attacks combined, not an occupation zone, and most of the fights took place in what is modern Western Russia, Eastern Belarus and Eastern Ukraine.

During the times of John II Casimir, there was a short-lived Commonwealth of the Three Nations (including the Ruthenian-Cossack state as a third part of the federation), which failed to properly form in the wartime conditions but won a major victory against Russians at Konotop in 1559 as such. You will find that Konotop is near Sumy in modern north-eastern Ukraine and was under Russian siege in 2022 - by 1559 the frontlines were already there.

[jarosawszczuraszyk]

You made a big mistake. During reing of Jadwiga and Jagiełło, teutonic order was not in Polish borders. In XVI there was also semi autonomi duchy of prussia!

[magellanicspaceclouds]

I'm pleasantly surprised by your pronunciations. They weren't as bad as in some other videos. Good effort!

[nicbahtin]

This is what happened when fail to pick up absolutism