Talk:Polish-Lithuanian-Muscovite Commonwealth

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[edit] Copied from Wikipedia talk:Eastern European Wikipedians' notice board

...a friend of mine asked how strong would be a resentment to Poles around 1630s? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:48, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Do you mean how much resentment was still there by 1630s? I can't tell of hand but I will try to see what I can find. --Irpen 06:17, August 23, 2005 (UTC)
Yes, exactly. My friend and are fans of the 163x fictional universe, and I would go even so far as to say we will have serious say in the future of PLC and Muscovy in that universe. We are considering now some scenarios, and one of the issues we are trying to research is if one of the monarchs died around 1635, how feasible the project of unia troista (Polish-Lithuanian-Muscovy Commonwealth) would be then. Even barring that fictional angle, I personally would love to see more Russian sources added to the article. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:06, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

The project of such Commonwealth would not have been feasible and the reasons are very fundamental, that is the presence of undoubtedly legitimate Russian ruler by the time. It didn't even cross anyone's mind to revolt against Ivan the Terrible (however harsh some of his policies were). I mean there were revolts but not against the Tsar per se. The attitude was that the state is a kind of "personal property" of descendants of Ivan Kalita, period. All of the afterwards mess was due to confusion and despair of the lack of an unquestionably legitimate ruler. Even nobles were so confused that they swore allegiance to False Dmitry (knowing that he was false) and even Pozharsky swore to the FD #1 at one time before he was invited by trader's guild to head the movement to end the chaos.

By 1630, Romanov's legitimacy took root and that calmed everyone down. There was no need to be in despair and accept some kind of union that would undermine Michael's sovereignty. Anyway, the resentment or lack of it would be secondary to the reasons above. Perhaps, the best place to continue such discussion would be a talk of the future article about Polish-Lithuanian-Muscovy Commonwealth.

Coming back to the PM-war article, I wish I knew more on the topic to contribute, because my feeling is that non-Polish POV is underrepresented (understandably, since Russian editors didn't work much on it), but, unfortunately, I am not prepared to make extensive edits to it right now. regards, --Irpen 22:50, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

And how about looking at the problem the other way around? In 1573 Ivan the Terrible was one of the candidates for the Polish throne - and not the least supported. Could such an union come from the other side? Halibutt 23:56, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

I doubt there was any real possibility of this to happen. I mean the 1573 Compact of Warsaw was indeed an unprecedented event but it wasn't enough to seriously consider a possibility of non-Catholic king. In those centuries people were very serious about those things. Look at the current attitudes and try to imagine that time! Quoting Britannica, for examle, the 1573 charter "...helped Poland avoid the religious wars that plagued other European countries, but it proved insufficient as a permanent barrier to discrimination against non-Catholics." There is more about the true extent of this attempted "tolerance" at recent Talk:History of Kiev. --Irpen 03:14, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Well, changing the faith was nothing uncommon (the Vasas, for instance). So a decent what-if scenario would be with prince Władysław getting the throne, without his idiotic dad meddling in Russia. How about that? Halibutt 08:18, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Convertion of Ivan the Terrible was unthinkable. Do you mean to swtich to discuss the third scenario now (Władysław ). Why don't you guys write a short stub for this 3-side commonwealth and we continue this there? --Irpen 15:06, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Done. Should we copy the discussion? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 20:47, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! I am not ready yet to discuss Wladyslaw's scenario for the game. However, I made some edits to the article which are within mainstream (I hope others would agree).
On a separate issue, also discussed at talk:History of Kiev, I am afraid that the notion of tolerance of top nobility in Poland is exaggerated in Polish historiography. That's not to deny, that the country was the furthest from autocracy in East-Central Europe but I am surpsized to find that knowledgeble contributors seriously argue about alleged "equality". OK, we can consider Russian/Ukrainian historiography also biased, but Britannica is a very clear example of the view on this from outside. The last thing I want is to offend anyone here. So I hope we can continue cooperation in spite of these differences in views. --Irpen 22:32, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] equality and religious tolerances in Polish-dominated federations

I missed the article's recent development and now I have some questions to its current state. First of all, I am dissapointed to see the fairy tales about the ethnic equality in PLC and religious tolerances there are getting spread to yet another article after being discussed at so many talk pages were we seemed to have agreed to, at least, moderate such statements.

Second, I would like to see some refs and elaboration of support of Ivan's candidacy in Poland. How large was it, especially compared to other candidates? Similarly, I haven't heard about Russian Boyars seriously contemplating submission to Polish rule due to the temptation to get some taste of freedoms that Polish nobility indeed enjoyed. Not that such a thing would have been totally irational, but this would go against everything they stood for. Russian elite considered the absolutism to be a natural order of state and were looking for the ways to get more of the absolute power rather than undermine the concept of it. That some pledge allegiance to the impostor and Wladyslaw was due to their desire to end chaos and to get an upper hand in the intra-Boyar rivarly and not to get polonized. At least so I read. Of course, my readings might have been biased too, so I am looking for the answers from other editors. And please, do not repeat what was already said at other talk pages. Most of us here will only find familiar names. --Irpen 07:28, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

The misleading article is full of unqualified original research. The fantasies by Polish revisionoists should clearly be posted for deletion. I'll add {accuracy} tag until then. --Ghirla | talk 08:25, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your constructive comment, Ghirlandajo. I knew we could all count on your knowledge and will to improve articles..
You are welcome. --Ghirla | talk 08:32, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
As to what Irpen wrote - currently the article states that This realization was, however, quite different from the original Polish idea of an entity in which all three states would have equal status. and the statement is marked as disputed. I believe it is fair to assume that, should such an union be indeed formed, the Russian boyars would have no less rights that the Lithuanian or Polish szlachta (some of whom were of boyar families themselves). Probably the sine qua non prerequisite would be formation of a separate Diet for Muscovy (just like Poland, Lithuania, Prussia and all the dependencies had their own Diets) and a copy of all the political system of self-government (Sejm-Sejmik and so on). Otherwise, such an union would not be very tempting to the Russians, I believe. I see no chance for such an union to appear if it was to include two completely different political systems (that is the noble democracy in the PLC and absolutism in Muscovy).
Of course, absolutism was seen as something quite natural, especially after 18th century when the boyars were finally broken and had no option but to enjoy their role. However, when speaking about earlier times, the Polish-Lithuanian political system was simply more tempting as it allowed for lower taxes, higher incomes and so on. Just imagine you are a 16th century boyar yourself and you are given a choice: either live under the direct power of the tsar almighty, with increasingly high taxation, royal property administered by the court rather than local boyars and so on - or live in a state with virtually no taxes, no royal control over the royal property you use and with real influence on the country's fate.
"Just imagine you are a 16th century boyar yourself..." - this is what I call nationalist fantasies. The history doesn't know "what if", as the saying goes. Encyclopedia is not appropriate for flooding it with original research. Likewise, I don't understand your assertion that the "boyars" were "broken" in the 18th century. Please elaborate what you have in mind. In truth, we have no evidence whatsoever that the Polish-Lithuanian political system was partiuclarly tempting, as its liberties often amounted to anarchy. What is more important, there was an impenetrable religious barrier between the polities. When Antonio Possevino attempted to speak to Ivan the Terrible about a religious union contemplated by the Poles, the latter all but killed him. --Ghirla | talk 08:32, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
I have no idea why did the Russians support Dmitris and Władysław and I doubt any author knows it for sure. I'm afraid that any option is possible and there might've been as many reasons as there were boyars to support any side there. Halibutt 15:44, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
I believe a few who supported Vladislaus wanted the nightmare started by the Wisniowieckis, Mniszeks, and their puppet tsar to end. Those who supported Demetrius, dismayed by the oppressive rule of Godunov, either believed that he was the legitimate Rurikid tsar, or aspired to manipulate him as a nonentity. --Ghirla | talk 08:24, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I am glad to see people using {{fact}} and the talk pages instead of revert warring. Majority of the article was written by me based on the academic work of Jerzy Malec (a professor at the Jagiellonian University[1] (Szkice z dziejów federalizmu i myśli federalistycznych w czasach nowożytnych, Wydawnictwo UJ, 1999, Kraków, ISBN 8323312788). Unfortunately I couldn't find anything online better then small Polish blurb [2]. Now, to address the specific disputable points:

  1. "This realization was, however, quite different from the original Polish idea of an entity in which all three states would have equal status". Halibutt gives a good explanation, and I don't see what's doubious here: as explained in the latter parts of the text, Muscovy would get the same rights as Lithuania, and those were almost equal to Poles (the only 'inequality' stemmed from the facts that capital was in Warsaw, there were fewer Lithuanians then Poles and Lithuanian nobility got polonized rather then the other way around).
  2. "Ivan IV had a substantial amount of supporters in Poland" - I will dig out Malec and see what exactly he writes about it, but that's the gist of his work. Quite a few Poles wanted him to be elected, but Ivan IV ruined his own candidacy by treating the Polish delegation sent to him with contemt (along the lines "...well, if you beg, then I may be gracious to accept it, but you will have to discard your stupid Golden Liberty...".
  3. "Some Russian boyars found the proposal attractive" - well, the very fact which even Irpen mentions that they elected Wladyslaw should remove the fact tag here. I guess we can add info that Times of Trouble chaos was another factor which might have added to their motivation, but as Halibutt notes there is too little data (at least that I know of) to be certain of their motivation: historical sociology is even less prompt to give certain answers then contemporary sociology. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:18, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
When I read the above comment, I thought I was dreaming. Amazingly, some editors really believe that the purpose of Wikipedia is to advertise their nationalist agenda. Please stop it. The article about how the Poles conspired to annex Moscow and convert the Russians to Papism should be moved to a more appropriate title highlighting the imperialist aspirations of the litvin magnates. Economic realities of the time induced them to seek more land and more serfs in the East, that's their motivation in a nutshell. With mere good intentions, the hell is proverbially paved. Enough fables about "liberal Poland". The "commonwealth" project was a nasty mirror to the Drang nach Osten. --Ghirla | talk 08:40, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
While the part of your message - from Economic realities to paved - is quite right, the rest unfortunately just goes to prove that you are still lost in your POVed version of history. I should have time to go over Malec in a day or so, this should clarify all the disputed/fact tags.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 13:59, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Piotrus and Halibutt, you may understandably disapprove the combative style of Ghirla's message but please, please, please let's discuss once and for all the myths of Polish federalism and agree on a reasonable version rather than spreading the mythology from article to article. This is not the first time the issue comes up.

This was discussed and other sources were cited earlier at this very page (first of all) but also at five (at least) other talk pages (talks of History of Kiev and Miedzymorze come to mind first). In an nutshell, the version to which all seemed inclined to agree was that while the freedoms of the members of nobility and, at certain periods, the degree of religious tolerance by far exceeded other areas of the Eastern Europe, there was nothing like real equality both for nobility or for non-Catholic Christianity and Judaism. The article's last edits grossly tilted the article away from being objective and even made it self-contradictory. For example the recently added phrase about the religious tolerance in the middle of the article contradicts to the more moderate assessment in the second last paragraph (that I wrote a while ago to which no one objected). I have to add the neutrality tag to this what became glorious praise to the Polish freedoms instead of the article about the proposed state.

Why is that when objections are first raised, they were never addressed, until the edit war starts looming? As soon as I stopped pressing the issue at Miedzymorze's talk and PMW's talk (about name) no one bother to address the issues to which people seemed to agree? I would have very much liked to correct such problems on my own but I lack both time and background having my hands full with Ukrainian topics most of the time. It saddens me that the issues that seem already discussed and agreed reappear later in different articles as if trying to raise them before was a waste of time. Let's do something about it. --Irpen 00:15, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I am all for improving this article. A sidenote: when one side stops 'pressing the issue', the other assumes the article is ok and for the same reasons you stated above moves to some other matters. I have found my Malec, and expanded the article. Feel free to NPOV the language, but all the facts are - as far as I can tell - correct, so I have have replaced the accurady dispute with NPOV dispute. And please let me know what is wrong with this sentence: This realization was, however, quite different from the original Polish idea of an entity in which all three states would have equal status.. Malec lists the points of both 1574 and 1600 negotiations, and as far as I can tell, they indeed would grant all three parts equal status - just as Lithuania was equal to the Crown in Poland. If the nees arises, I will translate all the points (it's on my 'to do list' anyway).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:57, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Piotrus, I am sad that I have to refresh your memory. Otherwise, you would not consider my "stopping to press the issue" as the sign that the article is OK. Take a second look at Talk of Miedzimorze. A couple of Polish editors, including yourself, after the discussion with me said "Fine, let's do this and that" and I said "OK, I agree". Nothing happened since then. Miedzymorze is the Polish topic and "same reasons" as I stated doesn't applu to you there. The same with PMW. I explained why the title is not adequate, no one stronly objected to the title I proposed. The article is still there. Should I have moved it myself? --Irpen 02:43, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Irpen, I cannot speak for others, but I personally don't have as much time (and access to refs) as I'd with for. I would love to work on Miedzymorze, but I don't have any new material to include. If you do, please do so. I'd certainly not recommend that article for FA, but what's your point? That it needs works? Sure. So do 1 million non-FA articles on Wiki, and the FAs are not perfect.
Thank you for pointing me to PMW naming discussion, it must have slipped my attention (with 600+ articles on my watchlist...). I do agree that the name should be changed, and replied there.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 03:06, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Now, to this one. That Lithuania was equal to Poland may very well have been on paper and in some books used in Polish high schools. However, there is no doubt that Ruthenian magnates and their religion was not equal to the Polish ones and the Catholicism. Read above and other talk pages. --Irpen 02:43, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Now, of course equality was not perfect. But based on my readings, the main inequality line was based on wealth (magnates vs lesser nobility), not nationality. I have yet to read a source that would argue that Lithuanian or Ruthenian nobility was discriminated against. There were attempts (by Zygmunt III, especially) to discriminate against non-Catholics, but they failed rather dismayingly. Many top magnates included Lithuanians (Radziwiłłs, for example). That the nobles were eventually polonized and Lithuanian (Ruthenian...) culture/religion lost its attractivness to local nobility it's was not through any government-directed action. Besides, IIRC, the polonization of Ruthenian nobility really got off in the second part of the 17th century, thus after most of unia troista ideas have already dissapeared. And remember that Catholicism/Orthodox dychtomy so exposed by some people is actually a myth ignoring the prominent position of various Protestant factions (especially until the mid/late 17th century, when Catholicism indeed gained an upper hand). Not to mention that such a sweeping statement (PLC was dominated by Poles) should be rather brought up at the Talk:Polish-Lithuanian_Commonwealth article. You may also want to review Polish-Lithuanian_Commonwealth#Demographics_and_religion.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 03:06, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Sweeping statement? From what I understood from this article the statement about lack of tolerance isn't sweeping at all as per a respected historian (I read in Polish with a significant degree of difficulty, so please correct me if I misunderstood the Daniel Beauvois' interview. Apparently, the Britannica seem to concur as per the quotes I added at Talk:History_of_Kiev#Oppression_vs_dominance long time ago. Would we take steps to enable the riddance of neutrality tag or would the article's POVing be defended at all costs I wonder? --Irpen 21:36, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

If you read the article carefully, the author interviewed criticizes those who believe that the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was some kind of utopia when it came to religious tolerance, with no religious conflict whatsoever. This is indeed, unfortunately, the view propagated in some books of popular history in Poland, and some Poles do believe it (not the people contributing to this discussion though, as far as I can tell). However, the author is not saying that Poland was on the whole an intolerant country, only that some religious conflict existed. My own view here is that it is totally unfair to judge that era by the standards of our day, and the only reasonable comparison is with other states existing during the period (i.e. 1500s, early 1600s). From that perspective, one can make a very good argument that Poland was the most tolerant large country in Europe at the time. Balcer 23:01, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
I read the article. It is interesting (and fair - note his reply to Jak Pan ocenia historiografię ukraińską i rosyjską w odniesieniu do prawego brzegu Dniepru? question), and I agree with Balcer above, but one should also note that although Daniel Beauvois is a historian, he is also relatively unknown, so his thoughts don't have to represent mainstraem view. Disclaimer: let me state that I don't mean to disprove him as a source, one should only note he seems to be a voice of a minority (and it is not for us to judge in article whether this minority is correct or not).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:15, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I tend to agree with this and I said so earlier that freedoms for nobility and degree of religious tolerance in PLC was unprecedented for the Eastern Europe. It doesn't contradict, however, in any way that the vision of the proponents of the Poland-centered "Federations", be it Miedzymorze, or PLXC (where X=M or R) implied the Polish domination in those megastates rather than an abstract "equality" that no one actually heard of anywhere but Switzerland. For some proponents, the idea of such domination was the motivation to create such federations, for others the idea was at the subconscious level perhaps.

If most Poles think otherwise, they should ask what people in the neighboring countries think of that, those who happen not to study History on the Polish textbooks. There is nothing wrong or Polish specific in glorification of the national history. As I said, I've seen the works of Russian and Ukrainian historians who view an entire eastern front of Polish September Campaign not as Polish partitioning but reunification of Ukrainians and Belarusians with their western brethren. I call such view as missing the forrest when seeing the trees but it is not that uncommon, especially in the view of the Polish treatment of their minorities. The interethnical violence between Poles and non-Poles before and after interbellum in what was Eastern Poland didn't come from nowhere but was built on the pattern of disastrous interrelationship between Poles and Ukrainians, largely due to the way how the minorities were treated in Poland and their memories of the behavior of Polish army towards Ukrainians in the PUW and Kiev Offensive, as well as what some Ukrainians perceived as Treason in Riga.

I know that such view may seem offensive to some, but this is just an illustration that one should take the national historiographers with the grain of salt. Now, can we return the intent of domination back into the article or you think the case hasn't yet been made and this is, as Piotrus put it, "such a sweeping statement". Please also take a look at the link I provided earlier (Talk:History_of_Kiev#Oppression_vs_dominance) for more "sweeping statements" this time from Britannica. The consentual proposal that people seem to have agreed to spin-off the peculiar idea of Polish Federalism into a separate article has been formulated at Talk:Międzymorze a while ago. People seemed to have agreed but nothing was done for months. --Irpen 23:40, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

It has been my experience that if a topic X is rather painful/shameful/irritating/etc, to nationality Y, but deemed important to nationality Z, then Wikipedians of Z are much more likely to start it then those of Y (hint ;p). I think that it is fairly obvious that in any federation proposed by country A, that country must have some advantage. Międzymorze designed by Pilsudski was obviously a federation in which Poland would have a leading role (I haven't read enough to know how leading, but simply judging by size and wealth it would be at least similar to the position of France/Germany in EU - and as far as speculations go, the 'ideal' M would have two equal motors, the second being Ukraine (size matters...)). In terms of PLMC, I think I have written that szlachta's goal (one of them, at least) was to get easy access to more lands. But in terms of political equality I honestly can't find anything that would look unequal. Can you point to a specific examples of Polish political imperialism or such in the idea of PLXC? PLRC was even more liberal. Of course both PLXC were designed for the nobility, not for the peasants, but that's another issue.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:29, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

if I misunderstood the Daniel Beauvois Daniel Beauvois who wrote the book interestingly is a specialists in Russia not Poland. He makes some allegations that are strange and would indicate limited knowledge or desire to influence the opinion of reader. He denies the status of democracy in Poland, saying that only nobility and landlords could vote. Yet many states had such laws allowing only wealthy people to vote and they are considered to have democractic system. So either Beauvois misinforms the reader on purpouse, evades this issue to push forward his opinion or simply lacks that information(doesn't seem likely). So as a source he seems questionalbe and definetely out of mainstream. I would say its one of those works that are controversial on purpouse to attract readers and evoke interest in the historian. --Molobo 12:34, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

It seems to be a law of history that wherever two communities are in contact, there is a history of competiton and conflict (for a literary renditon of this, see Bolesław Prus' micro-story, "Mold of the Earth"). In fact, the existence of such conflict is a major cause for a community's self-organization and self-definition.
A corollary to this is that, as historic see-saws shift, a community goes through a phase of imperialist expansion, followed by contraction.
It is equally true that national self-interest at times causes conflict between peoples to be outweighed by the imperative for them to cooperate (consider the common threats to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland that led to their personal union and to their common victory at the 1410 Battle of Grunwald).
Józef Piłsudski's motives in proposing a "Międzymorze" ("Intermarum") federation doubtless included nostalgia for a Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that had provided some mutual security against external threats. But as the proposed federation remained a hypothetical construct, so its potential down sides must also remain hypothetical. logologist|Talk 16:01, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mainstream and myths

I am not surpised by Molobo's attack on the historian whose views differ from those of Molobo. As for Piotrus' statement that: "one should only note he seems to be a voice of a minority (and it is not for us to judge in article whether this minority is correct or not)", I can't but agree that mainstreamness of the ideas should take precedence in how we organize our articles for encyclopedia. Moreover, I was criticized on other Wikipedia talk pages by some participants of this very dialog when I brought up the refs to Britannica. I was told that Britannica may be inaccurate, while I, without asserting that EB is always 100% accurate, maintained that it is the very good indication of "mainstream". I was always saying that peer reviewed Encyclopedia are the best place to check the mainstreamness and I stand by this view. Now, that Piotrus himslef insists on the mainstream-check of these ideas, I suggest that we take a look at other encyclopedias.

First, a Colubmia Encyclopedia, "Ukraine"'s article "History Chapter says:

"The dynastic union between Poland and Lithuania in 1386 also opened Ukraine to Polish expansion. Ukraine had flourished under Lithuanian rule, and its language became that of the state; but after the organic union of Poland and Lithuania in 1569, Ukraine came under Polish rule, enserfment of the Ukrainian peasants proceeded apace, and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church suffered persecution."

Also, a quote below from EB's "History of PL" article:

"...Ukraine was “colonized” by both Polish and Ukrainian great nobles. Most of the latter gradually abandoned Orthodoxy to become Roman Catholic and Polish. These “little kings” of Ukraine controlled hundreds of thousands of “subjects”... The new Eastern-rite church became a hierarchy without followers while the forbidden Eastern Orthodox church was driven underground. Wladyslaw's recognition of the latter's existence in 1632 may have come too late. The Orthodox masses—deprived of their native protectors, who had become Polonized and Catholic—turned to the Cossacks."

Also, same article:

" The heavy-handed behaviour of the “little kings,”... was resented even by small nobles and burghers. Growing socioeconomic antagonisms combined with religious tensions."

Same source, mow "Ukraine" article:

The Uniate church was unsuccessful in gaining the legal equality with the Latin church foreseen by the agreement. Nor was it able to stem the process of Polonization and Latinization of the nobility. At the same time, the Union of Brest caused a deep split in the Ruthenian church and society. This was reflected in a sizable polemical literature, struggles over the control of bishoprics and church properties that intensified after the restoration of an Orthodox hierarchy in 1620, and numerous acts of violence. Efforts to heal the breach in the 1620s and '30s were ultimately fruitless.

That was about tolerance. Now, to what Piotrus calls a "sweeping statement" about Polish domination in the Commonwealth. May a first of all refer you all to the Talk:Partitions_of_Poland/archive_2#Discussion, where the case against retitling it to Partititions of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was made based on the fact that Poland was the name under which the state was much better known. It has also been argued at that very page that the country was referred to by the neighbors as simply Poland at the time. Why would that happen should it not have been dominated by Poland? No one called GD of Lithuania as "Poland" prior to Lublin, I am sure.

Further, I will not quote the historians here, because Piotrus insists on the "Mainstream" and the history books that say otherwise may be discounted as non-mainstream by the proponents of the equality myth. Let's again look at Britannica, the golden standard of mainstreamness:

Within the [Lithuanian] grand duchy, the Ruthenian lands initially retained considerable autonomy. The pagan Lithuanians themselves were increasingly converting to Orthodoxy and assimilating into Ruthenian culture. The grand duchy's administrative practices and legal system drew heavily on Slavic customs, and Ruthenian became the official state language.
Direct Polish rule in Ukraine since the 1340s and for two centuries thereafter was limited to Galicia. There, changes in such areas as administration, law, and land tenure proceeded more rapidly than in Ukrainian territories under Lithuania. However, Lithuania itself was soon drawn into the orbit of Poland... (drawn into orbit is hardly appropriate phrasing for the equal union, isn't it?)

Same source, Union of Lublin article:

Formally, Poland and Lithuania were to be distinct, equal components of the federation [...] But Poland, which retained possession of the Lithuanian lands it had seized, had greater representation in the Diet and became the dominant partner.

Now, can we return the phrase about the intent of domination of the idea's proponents and moderate the phrasing about purpoted "tolerance"? --Irpen 23:46, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

You make some interesting points, and I am sure the discussion will be a long one. Let me just make one criticism now: you are bundling too many things together here. Specifically, the increase of serfdom and the worsening of the situation of the peasants was a strong trend in all of Eastern Europe in the 17th century, driven by the economics of the time. Specifically, Europe was differentiating economically, with the western part specializing in production of sophisticated goods, and the eastern, less developed part, in the production of basic foodstuffs and resources. Hence, in Eastern Europe, it became more and more profitable to squeeze the peasants more and more, so that more goods good be produced to be sold to Western Europe. As the historian in the interview said, a plantation economy has developed, similar to slave economics of the colonies of North America.
Now, since this was a general trend, which took place in Poland, Russia, Prussia, and other Eastern European countries, it was essentially inevitable and would have happened, one way or another, regardless of how the political borders were drawn. The only way to have avoided this would have been to establish some kind of a true democracy in which the peasants would actually have some political power, but this was totally inconceivable at the time.
In short, the impoverishment of the peasants and the increase in serfdom cannot be attributed to the Union of Lublin, or the increasingly dominating role of Poland in the Commonwealth. Balcer 00:32, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Irpen, I think we are speaking about slightly different things. Let me restate my POV and I'd like you to tell me if you disagree with me somewhere:

  1. In PLC, Polish culture was the dominant culture. However, there was no discrimination of Lithuanians in the politics or culture. In terms of signed treaties and such, GDL position was equal to that of Poland. The increasing importance of P over L can be attributed to the following factors: 1) larger population of Poland (anybody has some numbers for that?) 2) increasing (but voluntary) polonization of Lithuanian elites 3) localization of capital in the Polish part of the Commonwealth (before decrying this as discrimination of L, look at the map and note that the capital was moved from Cracow to Warsaw just so it would be closer to L. As a curiosity, the PLMC proposal stated that the king should reside in PL for 2 years, and in M for 1 year).
  2. As there were no other parts in the PLC with status equal to Poland (Crown) and Lithuania, other cultures (Jewish, Ruthenian, German, etc.) were to some extent viewed and treated as less equal, especially as szlachta (mostly Poles) viewed them as burghers/peasant cultures. There was however little state-sponsored discrimantion (designed to eradicate other cultures), as compared to other contemporaries countries, in the realm of culture tolerance PLC was relatively tolerant. What discrimination there was was based more on class divisions (szlachta vs burghers/pesants), less on nationality (Poles vs Ruthenians).
  3. Same can be said about the religion. Although after counter-reformation Catholicism gained the dominant position, there was little official discrimination against other faiths. Again, compared to its contemporaries PLC was very tolerant in terms of religion.
  4. Both PLMC and PLRC, as proposals, offered the respective cultures (Muscovy, Ruthenians/Cossacks) priviliges and rights as those extended to Lithuanians in the Union of Lublin. This does not of course mean that *every* Muscovite or Ruthenian/Cossack would gain from that treaty, as (just as with Lithuania) they would copy the Polish system benefiting local elites (nobility) while doing little (at best...) for other classes.
  5. In PLRC Polish culture would likely be dominant. It is harder to say whether this would be the case in PLMC, as Muscovite culture appears to have been more developed then that of Ruthenian in that period. In both of those cases, there would have likely be no 'forced' polonization (or Catholicization), as there was no such policy in PLC. In terms of political power of entities both hypothetical R and M parts would have powers equal to L, thus equal to that of P. In case of Miedzymorze, which would be a much looser federation (perhaps better say, it would be more of a 'an intergovernmental and supranational union' like EU then a clear political union like PLC?), Poland's domination would be based on the fact it would be one of the largest (population/size/economy) countries of that union, just as Germany/France play a leading role in EU today. Such domination, however, is far from controlling other states as 'puppet states', as was the case in the Soviet Block.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:42, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Piotrus, as per your advice, I took the EB supported mainstream statement (which makes it not at all sweeping) about Polish domination in the Union to the PLC article. I made some other changes there related to this discussion. I found a strange statement there (I would call it "sweeping") that Szlachta was "reluctant to wage offensive wars" and I commented that out. I also POVed the religion section for now since it is obviously inadequate. While it is harder for me to judge on the material related to counterreformation, the oppression of the Eastern Orthodoxy, well sourced and brought up here, is not addressed in the PLC article at all! I suggest that we resolve the issue here since these is related to the religion section of PLC article.

Now to your questions, the dominance of Poland wasn't just cultural. The union from the very beginning legalized by formally transferring to Polish crown the lands of much of Ruthenia that Poland seized from Lithuania.

To say that Ruthenia could be treated as "less equal" simply because only P and L where the partners one has to totally ignore that GLC then was largely Ruthenia itslef and Lithuanian nobility was mostly Othodox. According to the EB quote above, "The pagan Lithuanians themselves were increasingly converting to Orthodoxy and assimilating into Ruthenian culture. The grand duchy's administrative practices and legal system drew heavily on Slavic customs, and Ruthenian became the official state language." We are talking of the times when the 19th century concepts of nations were not even in the making and religion and loyalty to a sovereign were two things that largely construed one's self-identification. Ruthenian and Lithuanian nobilities were indistinguishable and to many Orthodox magnates both terms are applied in different text. Similarly, there is no doubt that those who converted to catholicism, started to identify themselves Polish.

Maybe PLC was relatively tolerant towards some religions but its treatment of EO and even Uniate churches varied from total temporary bans (for the EO) to legal oppression. If you haven't heard about this in the books you were using, reread the EB quotes I provided above. That times were such in general, I don't argue. One thing is to speak about relative strength of oppression and another thing is spreading the unmoderated myths.

Comparing the Miedzymorze to EU is original research, as far as I can tell. That Pisludski didn't want to dominate Ukraine or as much of it as possible I kind of doubt. Much less than his famous political statement: "Without independent Ukraine there can't be independent Poland", I find telling a different statement of him "Firstly an independent Poland, and than we will see to its size" (my reverse translation from quote I read in Russian "Сначала независимая Польша, а уже потом посмотрим, какая"[3]. The view of the rising Polish state towards Ukraine was expansionist first of all, that is to swallow as much of it as possible, and, make a "friendly" buffer state against the Soviet Russia from the rest. Puppet or not would have dependent on how things went. I am sure that Poland would prefer a puppet gov in Kiev and there is nothing unusual in wanting that. Politics is a cynical business. The PUW and behavior of his army during the Kiev Offensive do not imply any friendly motives towards Ukraine.

Finally, to what the non-noble parts of society would get from it, Balcer also wrote above along these lines and I agree that the condition of the rest is not the issue here and I was not trying to make it a point. Contrary, to what Balcer said, I am not bundling the conditions of peasants into the issue of religious oppression and Polish domination in all Polish-centered federation. I did not cut off the peasants issue from the quotes above only to preserve the context. These texts are not devoted to the narrow topic of equality of Poland and "non-Poland" in Polish-centered megastate, real or hypothetical. Being the general history texts, they speak more about more universal issues of interest, such as socio-economic development. I think that the peasant's conditions within Poland itself were comparable to that in Ukraine. The liberal vs non-liberal of that time was about rights of nobility.

Still, there is a myth that in PLC there was 1) an unheard of "equality" of nobility regardless of ethnicity and religion and 2) tolerance, also unheard of elsewhere, to non-court religion. Those myths are perhaps widely spread in the history text-books used in Polish schools thus becoming such a "common knowledge" in Poland, that explains Molobo's attack on a historian who he calls of "limited knowledge", calls using him as a source "questionable and definitely out of mainstream."

What I want is to agree to moderate the eulogies once rather than to have to return to this issue from one talk page to another. --Irpen 09:48, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I replied to the PLC related notes, with the exception of the POVed one, at Talk:Polish-Lithuanian_Commonwealth#Recent_edits. I'd strongly encourage using external links (or at least things that can easily be transformed into a citation) when mentioning them. Now, to continue our discussion: I am still waiting for you to reply to the specific points I raised (and numbered) in my above post: which parts are the one you would agree with (if any)?
"the oppression of the Eastern Orthodoxy, well sourced and brought up here" - brought up, yes, but what are the sources? Please cite them.
"The union from the very beginning legalized by formally transferring to Polish crown the lands of much of Ruthenia that Poland seized from Lithuania.". Poland 'seized them' diplomatically, in the act of Union. And it was a fair transaction (as fair as anything in politics): Lithuania was being incresingly defeated by Muscovy, and asked Poland for help. Poland replied: well, for getting us into that mess, we should be compensated somehow. As Lithuania was not forced into the Union by Poles, I think this should be stressed that it gave up the lands voluntarily (one can argue it was political blackmail or 'lesser of two evils', but facts are facts, and interpretations need sources).
You make a good case about similiarities between L and R. But again, it is the class division that is more important then nationality: R and L magnates / nobles were polonized, R and L population was not.
Międzymorze: I'd suggest discussing it at the other page. And at that time I have nothing on my shelves that could provide me with arguments in this discussion, I am afraid. A sidenote: it would be interesting to see what Davies has to say (if anything...) about this?
"I think that the peasant's conditions within Poland itself were comparable to that in Ukraine" - I do recall reading some sources that 1) argued that poverty increased to the east but 2) serfdom was heavier/more accepted in the west. I would need to find some citations for this, though.
"1) an unheard of "equality" of nobility regardless of ethnicity and religion and 2) tolerance, also unheard of elsewhere, to non-court religion." There is no denying that to much praise of PLC, especially in Polish sources, is biased - just as some Russian sources condeming PLC imperialism are biased in the other direction. What we can do is list the current article sentences/paras/etc. that one finds controversial, see if we can NPOV them together (preferably by providing sources when simple discussion is not enough). Since you are the party disputing the current version of the articles, please list the quotes you find POVed.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:10, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Piotrus, the numbered points of your previous entry are interrelated, so addressing them by bundling some of your statements together and provide a response is easier than repeating oneself multiple times in addressing 1, 2 and 3 separately.

"Sources about oppression" you ask again? Please read the exact quotes that I gave close to the top of the current section. They are all from EB and I cited specific articles. Unfortunately the full edition of EB is restricted and cannot be seen from britannica.com to the non-subscribed user, but I have a full access and gave the exact quotes word for word. I could have provided the refs to the historians who write on RU and UA history (including the Western ones that wrote in the post-Soviet times) but I am sticking to EB for now to avoid Molobo or anyone else questioning the statements as biased and "out of mainstream". You can't get more mainstream than EB. It can be inaccurate sometimes, like any no matter how respected source, but it cannot be dismissed as "out-of-mainstream".

That you say that class division was more important at the time than nationality is hard to argue against. Only, perhaps, I should stress again that making statements based on the comparison of a clearly relevant concept of class to the anachronistic for the time concept of nationality is a tautology. As I said above, what mattered at the time, besides, class, is suzerainty and religion. The answer to who one was by "nationality" at the time was secondary, or perhaps non-existing, unlike to the question who is one's suzerain and what's one's religion. So, equality of Polish and non-Polish magnates cannot be discussed separately from the anti-Orthodox policies of the commonwealth that was overreaching enough to even become "anti-Uniate", a clearly strange development taking into account that the latter owes its existence to these very anti-Orthodox proselytisers themselves. --Irpen 22:00, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

My problem is that I do agree with EB you quoted above, and so I am having trouble understanding what our courrent disagreement is about. Which part of the current article(s) (PLMC, PLC) are POVed? Please cite them here, of just change them in the text if you think you've proven your point.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:28, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV tag removal

Please let us know exactly what is POV here and how can we fix it (or better, sofixit). If there are no comments here in a few days I'd assume that the POV has been eliminated.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:01, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Please stop trolling. The Papists and Jesuits got their asses kicked elsewhere in Northern Europe not for nothing. Your idea that the Russians would have gladly renounced their Orthodoxy and embraced a Popish envoy from Warsaw reeks of original research and undermines credibility of Wikipedia in general. If you remove the tags, they will be restored in a moment. --Ghirla | talk 09:36, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Umm, Ghirla, are you feeling well? I thought this was behind us... Accusing me of trolling is not helping you, and your arguments and logic are quite... bizzare, to say the least. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:52, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
I also thought that I should not raise the issue of defrocking as you apparently reconsidered your "bad behaviour" as you call it. Unfortunately, your behaviour on this page borders on trolling. I have learned much about trollish ways, even earning an anti-troll barnstar in the process, so I may remind you that their favourite strategy is pestering. That's exactly what you've been doing here - asking "continual questions with obvious or easy to find answers". Therefore I follow the WP:DFTT's advice and "politely explain to you that I'd love to help but I am rather busy". Please don't bother me anymore. --Ghirla | talk 18:03, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Dear Ghirla, as much as I'd love to reform you, I don't have time for it, so I'll just say this: nobody invited you to this discussion, so we would all be extremly happy if you'd never let yourself be bothered by Poland-related articles. EOT.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:54, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Now if there are no meaningful comments (Irpen? you are satisfied with this matter?), I'll remove the POV notice shortly.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:54, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I am totally dissatisfied with the removal of neutrality tag. The conscious or subconscious intent of the proponents of all these federationS from the Polish side that they will be Poland dominated was removed from the article. This issue is very important to remember when talking about ALL Polish Federalism related articles, be it this one or Miedzymorze or PLC or PLRC.

Next, the article talks about the "religious tolerance" in Poland as something that drew opposition to the Union from the Russians, while the elaborated above at this talk religious oppression towards Eastern Orthodoxy as well as experience with waves of catholic proselytism that Poland carried towards the east is omitted from the article altogether. This exactly reason (lack of coverage of anti-Orthodox policies in PLC) is why I placed the POV-section tag at the "Demographics and Religion" sections of the PLC articles, as I explained.

Finally, Ghirla has a point that these issues were formulated and explained at this talk loud and clear. After that, without any of them being addressed, your calling to elaborate on the neutrality challenge at both talks (or otherwise you will remove the tags) seems unwarranted. --Irpen 23:11, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Irpen, I'll repeat this slowly: you brought forward ONE reference - EB. I agree with what this reference sais, and I won't object to including such wording in the article. However, you fail to convince me - so far - of all your claims, especially those related to PLMC or Miedzymorze (the EB article talks about PLC alone, and not about those hypothetical federations). Plese provide more references, and feel free to sofixit and edit the article(s) until you consider it non-POVed. I am copying the quotes relevenat to PLC to that article's talk page, but please, include direct linsk to the articles. Even if they require registration/etc., many of our users have such access, and online references must have online links.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:19, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Piotrus, I will repeat   v e r y     s l o w l y. I brought the references, and not one, that undermine both the equality and the tolerance statements. I brought them not from one but from two most respected English L encyclopedias. I also brought the ref to an interview with a historian and could have brought more refs to works of other historians but I saw it a waste of time because both you an Molobo can label any other historian a voice of minority, like you did above, and claim that his arguments are dismissible. As such, I am sticking for now to two encyclopedias that are widely considered as representative of mainstream as one can possibly be. I clearly stated what exact articles these are and I don't understand the request to add links. Go to the encyclopedia web-site and look under the article name I already gave.

Now, to your offering me to "feel free" to edit the articles. I am aware that I am free to edit anything I want. I may try to edit the religion section of the PLC article but I am more reluctant to edit this article because it is a less known topic and is on the borderline of Original Research, similar to the Miedzymorze article that connects different things in history and speculates on their connection. But note, that I don't have to be editing the article in order to justify the non-removal of the POV tag. I just have to explain what's wrong with the article and request this to be addressed. It is up to me and others interested enough in the topic to edit the article. I voiced a totally valid criticism. That I did not edit the article to change the points I consider questionable is because I have only this much time and there are more pressing articles for now in my watchlist. I will strongly object to the removal of the justified POV tag until one of the three things happen:

  1. I state that am satisfied with the neutrality after corrections and discussions at talk;
  2. I stop responding;
  3. There is a clear consensus from several editors that my objections are without merit or are already accounted for (and please not consensus among just three editors like in Volodarka, three people is not consensus)

Until then, please leave tag alone and/or "feel free" to edit the article so that my objections are taken into account. --Irpen 19:06, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, you brought Columbia as well. That's two sources for PLC. And a Russian source [4] related to Miedzymorze which I'll take your word is saying what you wrote, as I cannot read any of it (but you said nothing about reputability of that site). Am I missing anything? Now if you don't provide links, you are not being that helpfuf. I was willing to rewrite PLC to include your comments about lapses in religious tolerance towards Orthodoxy, but if you cannot provide links to the articles you once found, then I am sorry, I don't have time to repeat/verify your work. As for PLMC/Miedzymorze article, I'll repeat for the umptieth time that you have not provided any references related to them, you are only extrapolating your personal opinion of what PLC was to those two hypothetical entities. Unless you can provide references that clearly state that PLMC/Miedzymorze were planned to be Poland/Catholic-dominated, I cannot see why your personal POV should be enough to put a POV tag on those articles.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 20:21, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Zerkalo Nedeli is not a Russian but a Ukrainian analytical weekly. It is published in two languages (the Ukrainian version of this article is here. I gave the Russian one only because I thought it is better known to more editors. When I link articles from Zerkalo to the mainspace articles, I provide links to both. You can see Zerkalo Nedeli article to get a clue about its reputability. Additionally, I provided the link to the Polish article with an interview of the french historian. I can get you plenty of refs by Ukrainian and Russian historians. Just tell me that you will find it admissible rather than label everyone who contradicts the myths of Polish historiography a voice of minority.

What are you talking about when you said that I "fail to provide links"? I clearly said that I am talking about the "Ukraine" article in Columbia and Ukraine, Poland and Union of Lublin articles in Britannica. With this info, the articles are just one click away. Anyway, if finding the web-sites of Britannica and Columbia encyclopedia's causes a slightest difficulty for you, here are the links:

  • Columbia Encyclopedia:
    • Ukraine article "...Ukrainian Orthodox Church suffered persecution."
    • Poland article "the progress of Protestantism was arrested without coercion by the Jesuits... Relations between the Roman Catholic ruling class and the followers of the Greek Orthodox Church in Belarus and Ukraine ... were less harmonious and helped to involve Poland in several wars with Russia."
  • Britannica:

That was as far as PLC article is concerned. As for this article, I already said above that it talks about the "religious tolerance" in Poland as something that drew opposition to the Union from the Russians, while in truth the Eastern Orthodoxy in Poland was oppressed and Polish expansionism to the East carried waves of catholic proselytism. I hope these objections are enough for now and you will not threaten to remove the tag until they are addressed. --Irpen 20:59, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Tnx for providing the links, especially the one to the R/U language source. You definetly make a good argument in case of PLC, and the PLMC article should also mention the Orthodox plight, however you still have not provided anything to contradict the statement from Malec that religious tolerance was smaller in Muscovy then it was in Poland. I am also not seeing here much about this alleged Polish Catholic 'proselytism' or missionaries.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:02, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Irpen, as you have 'stopped responding' I assume (as you yourself wrote about) that you will not oppose removal of the npov tag?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 21:21, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article title

This article has serious problems. The title must be changed, or at least justified, as the concept of the Polish-Lithuanian-Muscovite Commonwealth is completely unknown in the English language or in English historiography. Google shows only 7 hits for this term, and almost all of them are just mirrors of Wikipedia content. Needless to say, a search on Google Book Search turns up absolutely nothing. Obviously then the title is an clear example of Original Research, and thus in violation of Wikipedia policies.

Furthermore, it is strange to have an article about a state that never existed. By definition, an (almost) infinite number of potential states have never existed. To illustrate the point: the Hispanic-Greek-Icelandic Commonwealth has never existed. Should we have an article about it? Of course I am being a little bit silly, still, it's clear the name must be changed. I propose something descriptive, like Efforts to establish a personal union between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Muscovy in the 16th and 17th centuries. It is long and unwieldy, but since no shorter term exists in the historiography, we should go with something like this. Balcer 06:41, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

The English title is my invention. The state is known to Polish historiography under unia troista or other names from ref/further reading, but I was unable to find any English historiography names for it. I don't think that we should go for long title; perhaps Polish-Russian union would be better?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 06:59, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
A search of Google pages in Polish for the exact term "unia troista" yields exactly one hit, and this one to an expired Allegro online auction which produces an error message. It appears the term is not well established in Polish historiography either (of course Google might be limited here). All the more reason to go with a more descriptive term. Polish-Russian union does not sound that great to me either as it misses out on Lithuania. I still think it is entirely reasonable to go with a longer, descriptive title. I have never heard of any Wikipedia guidelines which discourage long article titles (if these exist, let me know where to look for them). Balcer 07:12, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
How about the title Attempts to establish a Polish-Lithuanian-Russian Union in the 16th and 17th centuries"? Balcer 07:28, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
The earlier proposed long title reads like the title of an 18th-century tract, when it was customary to synopsize a book's entire content in its title. Since none of these titles have been previously used, I vote for the present short title. logologist|Talk 07:33, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Is it really that long? After all, it should really be thought of as Attempts to establish a Polish-Lithuanian-Russian Union (16th-17th centuries) i.e. the date is simply a disambiguation. We can even drop the date portion to keep things short, if that is a big concern. Balcer 08:13, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
On the other hand, the article is in dire need of thorough editing. logologist|Talk 07:36, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
That it certainly is. Oh well, since I seem to be the only one objecting to the title, and nobody else sees any problems with it, I am willling to accept it for now. Let's work on the article, and maybe in the course of the work some better ideas for a title will emerge. Still, the article clearly needs a better explanation for where its title comes from, to avoid confusion or misuderstanding. Maybe a deeper search of English language references will uncover a term actually used by historians.Balcer 14:55, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
As I stated before, the PLMC is my invention, before I even laid my hands on Malec. Now that we have some Polish (better then nothing...) histographic terms (unia troista, unia polsko-moskiewska, unia polsko-rosyjska) I think that a translation of one of these would actually be better.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:54, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Fine by me. Let's keep the disclaimer that the term comes from Polish historiography and has not seen much use in English (unless of course we find references that show otherwise). As for the range of dates, note that I specifically referred to serious attempts, and I don't believe there were any of these after 1618. Of course various people suggested the idea afterwards, but it never came close to being carried out, as far as I know.
On another note, given this discussion, should we similarly reconsider the title of Polish-Lithuanian-Ruthenian Commonwealth?Balcer 17:08, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Malec writes (a little) about those 1650s and 1780s attempts, although he does considers them less important, they are nonetheless notable. As for PLRC, sure - but at it's talk page would be better, I think.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:26, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Just as a sidenote: Google Print gives only 1 hint on Międzymorze. Would you suggest we retitle it as well? Some things are almost unknown to English historiography, doesn't mean they are not valid. See also the the difference between proposed country and fictional country.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 07:52, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

The Miedzymorze article is a different matter: it clearly states that the term is taken from the Polish language. It is of course fine for Wikipedia to discuss terms from other languages even when they are not well known in English. It is the wholesale invention of words which bothers me somewhat, especially when it is not necessary since a longer, more descriptive title would suffice. Balcer 08:13, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
The Miedzymorze is a thin veil covering Polish imperialism. Should have been moved to the proper English title long ago. --Ghirla | talk 09:30, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

As far as the Miedzymorze article is concerned, half of it belongs to other articles, not created yet. See its talk for the discussion. --Irpen 08:16, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

As for me, I would have moved the article to Polish imperial dreams or Polish-Lithuanian-Russian Empire. Both "commonwealth" and "muscovite" are fringe polonisms whose use is confined to the community of Polish wikipedians. --Ghirla | talk 09:39, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and that doesn't show a POV? I read this entire discussion and I find your attitude disturbing, commonwealth and muscovite are not fringe polonisms btw, and you would find zero factual support for that statement. You have shown that you clearly have an issue with Poles though. --Milicz 19:06, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reference

This seems to have some useful info, but I am too tired to incorporate it now. What do you think?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 06:13, 1 April 2006 (UTC)