Comments by "bakters" (@bakters) on "Eastory"
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@WastedEfforts "Nah, most of Rus people were part of Muscovy Tsardom."
Damn, if was hard to find. Rusyn people in PLC made up from 40-45% of the population, depending when exactly and how you count, but let's just say 5 mln all told in 1618.
Muscovia in mid XVIIth century had a total population of 6.5 mln, according to Boris N. Mironow of the Slavic Research Center. That's the total, so you'd expect not all were Rus.
So it was very close. Whoever held Smolensk, how you gonna count nationality, was there famine or war recently and so on.
"PLC didn't gobble up"
True. PLC didn't gobble up anything. The Great Kievan Rus and Lithuania joined in out of their own free will. The only militarily contested area was Smolensk.
"Besides, Rus subjects of PLC had no say in it's politics."
That's total nonsense. First, nobles were citizens , not subjects, and they had their own state, where Poles had little say! Official language was Rusyn. They had their own Sejms and Sejmiks and participated in the election of the king on equal rights. All nobles considered themselves to be equals, regardless of nationality and religion.
They could speak whichever language they wanted, they could believe however they wanted too. Usually they spoke Rusyn and Polish, due to marriage, schools and overall cultural influence. The religion, oh my, it all depends when, but let's say that various protestant religions and later orthodox.
You know when their role became markedly less important? When Muskovites attacked them in 1648 and totally ruined vast and well populated areas. The Tzar simply murdered them. They never truly recovered from this and then Polish culture started to be visible to a larger degree.
It's not like PLC depopulated Muscovy, did they? Because we were civilized people! We wanted you guys to join us, not to conquer you and force your submission.
It could have worked too, if not for religious differences.
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@BauboTV "commonwealth (or, Republic of two nations)"
This term, the republic of two nations, is a XIXth century invention. It was not used in Rzeczpospolita. Anyway, the Poles were the majority (barely), then there were Rus people (close to the Poles in population), then Lithuanians, Germans, Jews, Tartars and a few more.
I mean, if you want to consider Rzeczpospolita a Republic of only two nations , then it had to be the Poles and the Rus people. Them's the numbers, sorry. But of course, we don't need to exclude anyone. All nobles had equal rights, regardless of nationality.
"Up until WWI people in Lithuanian and Polish lands identified them selfs as sitizens of Commonwelth."
We still do. What happened to you guys?
"superior culture does not have to state the fact of its superiority it just have to be..."
Well, I for example I'm much less convinced about this superiority that what you could read in my posts. Sometimes I simply want to be challenged, because maybe I'm wrong? I'd change my views then.
Anyway, what's so wrong in discussing cultures and their various advantages and disadvantages? If we refrain from doing that, we may face the fate of Rzeczpospolita too. That would be kinda bad, wouldn't it?
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I just watched the introduction, and I'm sorry to tell you, but it's both not very accurate and definitely not a very fair picture that you paint there.
1. You made it appear like the burdens on the peasants were growing beyond reason, out of pure greed, and without them being a partner in the social contract.
That's how I was taught in school, but I was educated under "Realistic Socialism", so obviously you might be inclined to expect that they were not interested in a balanced picture... The reality was that the Commonwealth never experienced hunger, which was a major killer all over Europe and elsewhere! The master of the lands was supposed to not only fight to protect his lands, he was also expected to open up the granaries when the harvest was lean and feed his people . And it worked! Even long after the Commonwealth was gone, peasants have fled from more "free" places into it, because they simply did not want to die of hunger .
I'm no nobleman. One of my granddads was a baker, the other one started as a peasant worker in the nobleman's holdings. I'm definitely not inclined to be biased toward the noblemen. But the truth is how it is!
2. Then you made it appear as if Cossacks were a new fighting class in the southwest of the Commonwealth.
That's just not true. The Ukraine and neighboring places were for a very long time controlled by Rus people. At first by The Great Kievan Rus, later by The Grand Dutchy of Lithuania. Rus people had their own nobility, so Cossacks were nothing new in that regard. At some point Polish king and supreme ruler of the Grand Duchy decided to give Ukraine to Poland, just as a safety measure, so the Union would survive.
Poland had way more people and much stronger power projection abilities than the Grand Dutchy, so Ukraine and surrounding voyevodships experienced huge growth. There was peace, not more war! Sure, Cossacks were very frequently drafted into the armies which protected that area, but they were paid for that service. The rest of them, who were not drafted, fought for themselves. Sometimes according to law, sometimes by totally ignoring it.
I mean, you can't just say that "the Cossacks protected the Commonwealth", because the opposite statement is at least equally true. Whether you frame it as "The Commonwealth protected the Cossacks" or as "the Cossacks endangered the Commonwealth". It's not like we couldn't have found anybody else to serve in the army, and the armies actually protected the borders. Not loose warbands of wild people, who sometimes differed little from common bandits. And we definitely sometimes suffered retaliation wars caused by Cossack raids . Common people suffered, Cossacks didn't care. War was their mother, as they used to say.
3. The reasons for Cossack rebellions you give are also very unfair. I feel, both to the Cossacks as to the Commonwealth.
Cossacks were not considered to be nobles, they had no noble privileges. They were capable fighters, and everybody respected them for it, but they were also very wild, uncultured people. They couldn't write or read, or speak Latin. The nobility of the Commonwealth did not want such people among their ranks, because then Cossacks would have to be considered their equals.
The commonwealth used Cossack military services in exchange for promises of nobility for Cossack elites at least, but the promises were broken, so Cossacks understandably felt betrayed. There were two uprisings which resulted from that, but they were quickly thwarted. Then there was a king who planned a huge war against Ottomans and he promised a lot to the Cossacks in order to draft them for less money. He (un)fortunately died before he could realize his campaign or promises, so there was a lot of disappointment among Cossacks.
Finally, the actual and the most important factor in Chmielnicki uprising, was religion . The Commonwealth for a very long time was a very tolerant state, but that has changed in the decades preceding the wars. The Orhodox people of Rus states were forced to abandon their customs, so when Cossacks rebelled for yet another time, this time they were supported.
Religion was a major factor. The uprising was at least partially a religious war.
Sorry, I know it's a long post but that topic is simply a very complex one. I could have made it shorter, just like you've done, but then I'd risk someone claiming that my opinion is biased and incorrect, just like I've done. ;-)
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