History of Belarus: Encyclopedia II - History of Belarus - Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

History of Belarus - Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

The Lublin Union of 1569 constituted the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as an influential player in European politics and the largest multinational empire in Europe. While Ukraine and Podlasia became subject to the Polish Crown, Belarus was still regarded as part of Lithuania. The new polity was dominated by much more densely populated Poland, which had 134 representatives in the Sejm as compared to 46 representatives of the Grand Duchy. However the Grand Duchy retained much autonomy, and was governed by a separate code of laws called the Lithuanian Statutes, which codified both civil and property rights. Mogilyov was the largest urban centre of the territory of modern-day Belarus, followed by Vitebsk, Polotsk, Pinsk, Slutsk, and Berestye, whose population exceeded 10,000. In addition, Vilna, the former capital of the Grand Duchy, also had a significant Ruthenian population.^[3]

With time the ethnic pattern did not evolve much. Throughout their existence as a separate culture, Ruthenians (Belarusians) formed in most cases rural population, with the power held by local szlachta and boyars, often of Lithuanian, Polish or Russian descent. As in the rest of Central and Eastern Europe, the trade and commerce was mostly monopolized by Armenians and Jews, who formed a significant part of the urban population. Since the Union of Horodlo of 1413 local nobility was assimilated into the traditional clan system by means of the formal procedure of adoption by the Polish gentry. Eventually it formed a significant part of the szlachta. Initially mostly Ruthenian and Orthodox, with time most of them became polonized. This was especially true for major magnate families (Sapieha and Radziwiłł clans being the most notable), whose personal fortunes and properties often surpassed those of the royal families and were huge enough to be called a state within a state. Many of them founded their own cities and settled them with settlers from other parts of Europe. For instance, there were some Scots, Germans and Dutch people inhabitating major towns of the area. Also, several Italian artists was "imported" to the lands of modern Belarus by the magnates. Contrary to Poland, in the lands of the Grand Duchy the peasants had little personal freedom in the Middle Ages. However, with time the magnates and the gentry gradually limited the few liberties of the serfs at the same time increasing their taxation, often in labour for the local gentry. This made many Ruthenians flee to the scarcely populated lands, Dzikie Pola, (Wild Fields), the Polish name of the Zaporizhian Sich, where they formed a large part of the Cossacks. Others sought refuge in the lands of other magnates or in Russia^{[citation needed]}.

Also, with time the religious conflicts started to arise. The gentry with time started to adopt Catholicism while the common people by large remained faithful to Eastern Orthodoxy. Initially the Warsaw Compact of 1573 codified the preexisting freedom of worship. However, the rule of an ultra-Catholic King Sigismund III Vasa was marked by numerous attempts to spread the Catholicism, mostly through his support for counterreformation and the Jesuits. Possibly to avoid such conflicts, in 1595 the Orthodox hierarchs of Kiev signed the Union of Brest, breaking their links with the Patriarch of Constantinople and placing themselves under the Patriarch of Rome. Although the union was generally supported by most local Orthodox bishops and the king himself, it was opposed by some prominent nobles and, more importantly, by the nascent Cossack movement. This led to a series of conflicts and rebellions against the local authorities. The first of such happened in 1595, when the Cossack insurgents under Severyn Nalivaiko took the towns of Slutsk and Mogilyov and executed Polish magistrates there. Other such clashes took place in Mogilyov (1606-10), Vitebsk (1623), and Polotsk (1623, 1633)^[4]. This left the population of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by large divided onto Greek Catholic and Greek Orthodox parts. At the same time, after the schizm in the Orthodox Church (Raskol), some Old Believers migrated west, seeking refuge in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which allowed them to freely practice their faith ^[5].

Despite the abovementioned conflicts, the literary tradition of Belarus evolved. Until 17th century the Ruthenian language, the predecessor of modern Belarusian, was used in all of the Grand Duchy as a chancery language, that is the language used for all official documents. Afterwards it was replaced with Polish language, commonly spoken by the upper classes of Belarusian society. Both Polish and Ruthenian cultures gained a major cultural centre with the foundation of the Academy of Vilna. At the same time the Belarusian lands entered a path of economic growth, with the formation of numerous towns that served as centres of trade on the east-west routes.

However, both economical and cultural growth came to an end in mid-17th century with a series of violent wars against Muscovy, Sweden, Brandenburg and Transylvania, as well as internal conflicts, known altogether as The Deluge. The misfortunes were started in 1648 by Bohdan Chmielnicki, who started a large-scale Cossack uprising in the Ukraine. Although the Cossacks were defeated in 1651 in the battle of Beresteczko, Khmelnytsky sought help from Russian tsar, and by the Treaty of Pereyaslav Russia dominated and partially occupied the eastern lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth since 1655. The Swedes invaded and occupied the rest in the same year. The wars had shown internal problems of the state, with some people of the Grand Duchy supporting Russia ^[6] while others (most notably Janusz Radziwiłł) supporting the Swedes. Although the Swedes were finally driven back in 1657 and the Russians were defeated in 1662, most of the country was ruined. It is estimated that the Commonwealth lost 1/3 of its population, with some regions of Belarus loosing as much as 50%. This broke the power of the once-powerful Commonwealth and the country gradually became vulnerable to foreign influence.

Subsequent wars in the area (Great Northern War and the War of Polish succession) damaged its economy even further. In addition, Russian armies raided the Commonwealth under the pretext of the returning of fugitive peasants^[7]. By mid-18th century their presence in the lands of modern Belarus became almost permanent.

The last attempt to save the Commonwealth's independence was a Polish-Belarusian-Lithuanian national uprising of 1794 led by Tadevus Kasciuska, however it was eventually quenched.

Eventually by 1795 Poland was partitioned by its neighbors. Thus a new period in Belarusian history started, with all its lands annexed by the Russian Empire, in a continuing endeavor of Russian tsars of "gathering the Rus lands" started after the liberation from the Tatar yoke by Grand Duke Ivan III of Russia.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki