Polish–Lithuanian–Muscovite Commonwealth

Polish-Lithuanian-Muscovite Commonwealth (in Polish also known as unia troista — "triple union") was a never-formed state based on a personal union between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Muscovite Russia. These nations did in fact come to be ruled by the same sovereign in the 19th century, when, after the partitions of Poland, Tsar Alexander I of Russia was crowned king of Poland. This realization of the idea was, however, quite different from the original concept.

The idea was first broached in the 16th century after the death of the last Polish king of the Jagiellon dynasty, Zygmunt II August. Russia's Tsar Ivan IV ("the Terrible") became a contender for king of Poland. The success of his candidacy, even hypothetically, was doubtful from the first, though, since the Polish nobility would likely have required Ivan's conversion to Catholicism.

The proposal was revived in the early 17th century, initially by influential secular thinkers among the Polish nobility such as Jan Zamoyski and Lew Sapieha, but it was also taken up by the Jesuits and other papal emissaries who never ceased entertaining the idea of converting Orthodox Russia to Catholicism. This mixed circle of idea proponents saw an opportunity in Russia after Ivan the Terrible, the last Russian ruler of that time whose legitimacy was never questioned, died without issue. With the legitimacy issues clouding the entire period of the rule of Boris Godunov, Russia submerged in even greater chaos upon his death which was followed by a decisive Polish armed intervention, or the Polish-Muscovite War (1605-1618), commonly referred to in Russia as the Time of Troubles. In the course of the war, the Polish prince (later king) Władysław IV Waza was briefly elected a Russian Tsar among other such strange developments like enthronement and short reighn of False Dmitry I, an impostor of tsar Ivan's son. However, Wladyslaw was never officially enthroned and his quirk election remained in history as one of the fluke events of Russia's Time of Troubles.

The idea also resurfaced in 1650s, after the death of Władysław and in 18th century, when the last Polish king Stanisław August Poniatowski attempted to save the Polish state by proposing a marriage between himself and Russian Empress, Catherine the Great.

The very possibility that such an idea could have been seriously considered by the Polish side early on was likely based on the spirit of the 1573 Warsaw Convention (Warsaw Compact), that guaranteed, at least formally, an equality for non-Catholic nobles in the Commonwealth. However, while the adopted convention was an unprecedentedly liberal act for its time, such full equality was never achieved in reality even within the Commonwealth itself. Taking into account that the most divisions of that time, if not dynastic, were the religious divisions and the relationship between the Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox branches of Christianities were strained at best, it remains surprising that such an idea was seriously considered at all. It remains equally unlikely, that such an idea could have been accepted by the Russian side because the view towards Catholicism in the Muscovite Russia was highly negative. Thus, while supported at the early stage by some progressive and secular Polish diplomats, in the end, the efforts of the few could not overcome the Muscovy resistance to Catholicism, and fear that if the union would ever come to fruition, Catholicism would overcome the Orthodox religion.

See also

• Polish-Lithuanian-Ruthenian Commonwealth

References

• Jerzy Malec, Szkice z dziejów federalizmu i myśli federalistycznych w czasach nowożytnych, Wydawnictwo UJ, 1999, Kraków, ISBN 8323312788