Politics and Religion in early modern Poland-Lithuania

In the late medieval and early modern period, the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania was the largest state in Europe. It was a union state comprising at various points territories that are now wholly or partly in Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Latvia and Estonia. Its vassal states included the Duchy of Prussia and Moldavia. National history has neglected these early modern composite monarchies and union states, working on the assumption that unitary nation states were the hallmark of political modernity. The multi-ethnic and multi-religious tradition of the Polish-Lithuanian union, which endured for over four centuries, was based on participatory citizenship, an elective monarchy and religious toleration. Between the fifteenth and the eighteenth century, in stark contrast to the absolute monarchies that were constructed in neighbouring states such as Russia, Austria, and Prussia, the Polish-Lithuanian union state represented a fascinating constitutional experiment. This PhD project invites students to explore the history of political and religious union and the impact of changing political thought on political practice, against the background of state-formation in a Europe of composite monarchies. Possible topics include: the representation of union by contemporary chroniclers, historians and politicians; conflict resulting from varying interpretations of political and religious union; the debate on union in the Polish-Lithuanian parliament and contemporary political treatises; analysis of the nature of composite monarchy, religious toleration, the nature of citizenship, the mixed form of government, centralisation, provincial politics, and the relationship between the various component parts of the union; the European and global context that arises from the analysis of Polish-Lithuanian views of other monarchies, republics and foreign political unions (such as Britain, the Spanish monarchy or the Holy Roman Empire, etc.), which gives the topic resonance for today’s politics; the end of unions through partition and the rise of early national movements in the early nineteenth century.