Vor 457 Jahren wurde das polnisch-litauische Commonwealth gegründet

It’s been 231 years and I still can’t get over it 💔

It was a mistake. We had a compact, well-governed kingdom that was a power in its own right.
By merging with Lithuania, we inherited their problems, mainly the perennial and unsolvable conflict with Muscowy. Moreover their magnates/oligarchs (this kind of tycoons is apparently the norm in that region) became part of our ruling class and soon took over and wrecked our state beyond repair. Lithuania didn’t even bring much to the table. That realm was huge but poor, underdeveloped and underpopulated and surrounded by enemies from almost all sides.

Now it seems that the optimal strategy would be, after alliance against the Teutonic Knights outlived its usefulness, to ally with Muscowy and divide Lithuania by taking some better Western chunks for ourselves.

EDIT: The union happened precisely because the last Jagiellonian monarch was aware and terrified that Lithuania will simply fold under Muscovite pressure once his two realms separate move their own way. This was also the main reason why what’s today Ukraine was detached from Lithuania and directly attached to Poland. It was to make Poland also border Muscowy to make Lithuanian problem with that state also a Polish one.
Before that, Poland had little reason to have a beef with Moscow. In fact, we would be the perfect partner to jointly partition Lithuania and establish a permanent border somewhere, like approximately along the interwar Polish border.

EDIT 2: Polish interests in 16th century weren’t somewhere in the wild fields, or at the approaches to Smoleńsk. By being dragged there, Poland forego its interests in Pomerania and Silesia and chances to regain those provinces which were real on several occasions in 16th and 17th century.
Kraków was merely 20 km (or so) away from border with Silesia. And yet our strengths were pulled away from this obvious direction to protect massive self-governing magnate estates thousands of kilometers away. Meanwhile those magnates were sucking the blood from the rest of the country by facilitating massive peasant migrations away from Poland and paying no taxes in return and meddling with the country’s government rendering it inoperable.

Good times

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO-9l29RzrE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO-9l29RzrE)

ten obrazek jest do dupy w połaczeniu z tym tematem. Obraz to Wjazd Sobieskiego do Wilanowa. Ten Palac w tle to jest obecny Pałac w wilanowie. Nie był nawet jeszcze zbudowany w czasie Unii Lubelskiej, bo zbudowano go dla Sobieskiego ok 1680, i tez nie wygladał tak wygląda na tym obrazku.