History of Poland 1569–1795: Encyclopedia II - History of Poland 1569–1795 - House of Vasa

History of Poland 1569–1795 - House of Vasa

History of Poland 1569–1795 - Zygmunt III Waza 1587–1632

The first few years of Sigismund's reign, until 1598 saw Poland and Sweden united in a personal union that made the Baltic sea an internal lake. However, the rebellion in Sweden started the chain of events that would involve Commonwealth in more than a century of warfare with Sweden.

In the end, Sigismund III Waza failed to strengthen the Commonwealth nor to solve its internal problems; instead he concentrated on a futile attempt to regain his former Swedish throne.

History of Poland 1569–1795 - Polish-Sweden-Muscovy Wars

Main articles: Time of Troubles, Dymitriads, Polish-Swedish War,

Sigismund desire to reclaim the throne drove Sigismund into prolonged military adventures waged against his native Sweden under Charles IX and later also Russia. In 1598 Sigismund tried to defeat Charles with a mixed army from Sweden and Poland but was defeated in the battle of Stångebro. The war continued, punctuated by many ceasefires and broken peace treaties. On occasion, these campaigns brought Poland to a nearly complete conquest of Russia and the Baltic coast during the Time of Troubles and False Dimitris, had it not been for the military burden imposed by the ongoing rivalry on multiple borders: the Ottoman Empire, the Swedes and the Russians.

Main articles: Magnate wars in Moldavia and Polish-Ottoman War (1633-1634)

Commonwealth-Ottomans relations were never too warm, as the Commonwealth viewed itself as the 'bulwark of the Christendom' and together with Habsburgs and Republic of Venice was the thorn in the Ottoman plans of European conquest. Since the second half of the 16th century, Polish-Ottomans relations, never too friendly, were further worsened by the escalation of Cossacks-Tatars border warfare, which turned the entire border region between the Commonwealth and Ottoman Empire into a semi-permanent warzone.

In the 1595, magnates of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth intervened in the affairs of Moldavia. This would start a series of conflicts that would soon spread to Transylvania, Wallachia and Hungary, when the Commonwealth forces clashed with the forces backed by Ottoman Empire and occasionally Habsburgs, all competing for the domination over that region.

With the Commonwealth engaged on its northern and eastern borders with near constant conflicts against Sweden and Muscovy, its armies were spread thin. Finally, the southern wars culminated in the Polish defeat at the battle of Cecora in 1620. Eventually the Commonwealth was forced to renounce all claims to Moldavia, Transylvania, Wallachia and Hungary.

The population of Poland-Lithuania was neither overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nor Polish. This circumstance resulted from the federation with Lithuania, where ethnic Poles were a distinct minority. In those days, to be Polish was much less an indication of ethnicity than of rank; it was a designation largely reserved for the landed noble class, which included members of Polish and non-Polish origin alike. Generally speaking, the ethnically non-Polish noble families of Lithuania adopted the Polish language and culture. As a result, in the eastern territories of the kingdom a Polish aristocracy dominated over a peasantry whose great majority was neither Polish nor Catholic. Moreover, the decades of peace brought huge colonization efforts to Ukraine, which heightened tensions between peasants, Jews and nobles. The tensions were aggravated by the conflicts between Orthodox and Greek Catholic churches following the Union of Brest and by several Cossack uprisings. On the West and North, cities had big German minorities, often of reformed belief.

History of Poland 1569–1795 - Władysław IV Waza 1632-1648

Main articles: [[]], Polish-Muscovy War (1632-1634), Ottoman-Commonwealth War (1633-1634), and [[]]

Wladislaw tried to achieve many military goals, including conquest of Russia, Sweden and Turkey. His reign is that of many small victories, few of them bringing anything worthwhile to the Commonwealth. For a time, he was elected a tsar, but never had any control over Russian territories. In the end, like his father, he failed to strengthen the Commonwealth or prevent the crippling events of The Deluge or Chmielnicki Rebellion, that devastated the Commonwealth in 1648.

History of Poland 1569–1795 - Jan Kazimierz Vasa 1648–1668

The reign of the last of Vasas in the Commonwealth would be dominated by the culmination in the war with Sweden, groundwork for which was laid down by the two previous Vasa kings of the Commonwealth.

In 1660 Jan Kazimierz would be forced to renounce his claims to the Swedish throne and acknowledge Swedish sovereignty over Livonia and city of Riga. He abdicated on 16 September 1668 and returned to France where he joined the Jesuit order and became an ordinary monk. He died in 1672.

This largest of all Cossacks rebellions, led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky, proved disastrous for the Commonwealth. In the end, Commonwealth not only lost parts of its territory to Russia, but was weakened at the moment of invasion by Sweden.

Although Poland-Lithuania escaped the ravages of the Thirty Years' War, which ended in 1648, the ensuing two decades subjected the country to one of its severest trials. This colorful but ruinous interval, the stuff of legend and the popular historical novels of Nobel laureate Henryk Sienkiewicz, became known as the potop, or deluge, for the magnitude and suddenness of its hardships. The emergency began with an uprising of Cossacks in Ukraine that culminated in a reassertion of an independent Cossack nation centered in Kyiv, in spite of Warsaw's efforts to subdue it by force. After the Cossacks concluded the Treaty of Pereyaslav with Russia, prolonged and increasing Russian intervention began in the Ukrainian and Belarusian territories. Taking advantage of Poland's preoccupation and weakness, Charles X of Sweden rapidly overran much of the remaining territory of the Commonwealth in the same year. Pushed to the brink of dissolution, Poland-Lithuania rallied to recover most of its losses from the Swedes. In exchange for breaking the alliance with Sweden, the ruler of Ducal Prussia was released from his vassalage and became a de facto independent sovereign, while much of the Polish Protestant nobility went over to the side of the Swedes. Swedish brutality, and especially the ineffectual siege of Jasna Gora monastery in Czestochowa in winter of 1655-1656, raised widespread revolts against Charles, whom a part of Polish nobles had recognized as their ruler in the meantime. Under hetman Stefan Czarniecki, the Poles and Lithuanians have driven the Swedes from their territory by 1657.

Further complicated by dissenting nobles and wars with the Ottoman Turks, the thirteen-year struggle over control of Ukraine ended in the Truce of Andrusovo in 1667. Although Russia had been defeated by a new Polish-Cossack alliance in 1662, it gained eastern Ukraine in the peace treaty.

Despite the improbable survival of the Commonwealth in the face of the potop, one of the most dramatic instances of the Poles' knack for prevailing in adversity, the episode inflicted irremediable damage and contributed heavily to the ultimate demise of the state. When Jan II Kazimierz abdicated in 1668, the population of the Commonwealth had been nearly halved by war and disease. War had destroyed the economic base of the cities and raised a religious fervor that ended Poland's policy of religious tolerance. Henceforth, the Commonwealth would be on the strategic defensive facing hostile neighbors. Never again would Poland compete with Russia as a military equal.

In the Treaty of Oliwa in 1660, John II of Poland finally renounced his claims to the Swedish Crown, which ended the feud between Sweden and the Commonwealth and the accompanying string of wars between those countries (War against Sigismund (1598-1599), Polish-Swedish War (1600-1629) and the Northern Wars (1655-1660)).

After the Treaty of Andrusovo in 1667 and the Eternal Peace Treaty of 1686, the Commonwealth lost left-bank Ukraine to Russia.

Polish culture and the Greek Catholic Church gradually advanced and by the 18th century, the population of Ducal Prussia was a mixture of Catholics and Protestants and used both the German and Polish languages. The rest of Poland and most of Lithuania remained firmly Roman Catholic, while Ukraine and some parts of Lithuania (i.e., Belarus) were Greek Catholic. The society was split into a polonized upper stratum and peasants of other nationalities.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "House of Vasa", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki