The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: The Forgotten ‘Utopia’ 

“Whoever comes to me will be free and equal, because I am freedom.” These bold words, uttered by the spirit of Poland (Wolność) in Adam Mickiewicz’s Pan Tadeusz, establish a clear parallel with the words of Christ upon which they are based. This association of Poland with a mission ordained from the Divine, and the longing for the values it once stood for, were common tropes in works created during the Romantic era. Yet to dismiss it all as a nationalistic overexaggeration would also be to dismiss the very real history that poets such as Mickiewicz instilled as the foundation of their masterpieces.

When one thinks of Poland today, words such as ‘conservative’ might come to mind, perhaps accurately describing the homogenous population that resides within it. However, had one asked, say, an Englishman visiting the realm of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (PLC) during the 1500s, the opinion would no doubt be the complete opposite. The sight of synagogues and mosques standing alongside churches on what was supposed to be Christian soil would have bewildered them – England expelled its Jewish population in 1290.

Even more shocking to them would have been the election of an incoming monarch, the first in 1573, spitting directly upon the longstanding idea of the ‘Divine Right of Kings’. Even with the existence of the Magna Carta, this shock would hardly be alleviated by the revelation that the king had to take an oath pledging loyalty to his subjects. Although this was never fully carried out with the result of dethronement, his subjects retained the right to dethrone the king if he ignored his obligations.

To further cap their shock, the Englishman would have been astonished to witness the number of parliamentary institutions in place to limit the power of the Crown and to afford representation within the Sejm (the parliament). This allowed 7% of the population to have a vote, a feat that would not be surpassed in England until the 19th century with the passing of the ‘Great’ British Reform Act of 1832.

Focusing on the former, one must keep in mind that the PLC spanned nearly 1,000,000 square kilometres at its greatest extent. To visualise this better, the UK spans around 244,000 square kilometres. It therefore encompassed many different ethnic groups, from Ukrainians who adhered to the Orthodox Patriarch rather than the Pope, to the Tartars who occupied the southeastern reaches of the realm and adhered to Islam. Although officially having Christianity as its state faith, the PLC managed to thrive as a multi-ethnic nation due to its unique adherence to liberty and legality, resulting in events such as the Confederation of Warsaw of 1573 and acts containing clauses such as ‘that albeit we are dissidents in religion, we will keep the peace between ourselves’.

This tolerance and its subsequent enshrinement into the laws of the nation allowed it to act as a haven for those persecuted on religious grounds elsewhere, most notably the Jewish community. The PLC saw major influxes of Jewish refugees whenever anti-Semitic actions occurred within the continent, such as in 1492 and 1496 when Spain and Portugal, respectively, expelled their Jewish populations. As a result of this welcoming attitude and other events, some scholars suggest that Poland had around 80% of the global Jewish population by the sixteenth century.

This toleration extended to the different denominations of Christianity, which likewise would have faced severe persecution if they had instead been located in one of the PLC’s neighbouring realms. As a result, it allowed the Commonwealth to occupy a unique position compared to the kingdoms of its day, where Protestants lived alongside Catholics in relative peace while elsewhere events such as the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre were occurring. It allowed for Arians to make fine translations of the Bible into Polish, and for Calvinists to set up academies and schools all over the nation, all while Muslim horsemen served under the Polish crown and groups of Jewish traders facilitated overseas exchange.

Focusing on the latter, the election of a king sounds foreign even to this day and must have been even more confounding when every state was a kingdom. This unique process was a product of the time when Poland was split into multiple different duchies after the death of Bolesław III in 1138. This meant that each divided part of Poland had a ‘ruler’ who held immense political power, and as a result, the only way for each of these dukes to come together under a reunification scheme under one monarch was for each of them to reach an agreement on who it should be. This spirit of mutual agreement continued and finally manifested in the monarchical elections of 1573, which set a precedent for every election thereafter.

However, this proto-democratic process did have its drawbacks, mainly through the new monarch’s lack of interest in the realm over which he presided, as they were usually a foreigner. For example, the first elected king was of French lineage. Most importantly, since the king had his powers hamstrung by the constitution, the quick decisions needed whenever a crisis arose were nowhere to be found, most critically in foreign policy, which would eventually cost the PLC its place on the map. In spite of all of this, the essence of distrusting central authority – which would make even Orwell proud – persisted throughout the centuries, for better or for worse.

The PLC is a thing of the past. Its most fervent nostalgics lived nearly two centuries ago. However, its lifeblood, the values and liberties that made the Commonwealth what it was, can not only be found in the Poland of today but also in most of the continents that the globe contains.

Bibliography 

Mickiewicz, Adam, Pan Taduesz, Or the Last Foray in Lithuania: A Nobility’s Tale of the Years 1811- 1812 in Twelve Books of Verse (Academic Studies Press, 2024) 

Zamoyski, Adam, Poland: A History (HarperPress, 2009)