How do we feel about the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth?

>>17791036 (OP)
They were cowards who invaded Mother Russia during the Time of Troubles.

>>17791036 (OP)
Pretty overrated due to it's later fate and perceived multiculturalism

>>17791036 (OP)
Globohomo prototype

Even more fucked up than the HRE, even if it doesn't yield the same entertaining bordergore

>>17791036 (OP)
fucked by expansion east

>>17791036 (OP)
dystopian giga-shithole where 10% of the population lorded over the rest like slaves, you were unironically way better off as a christian in the ottoman empire than as a serf in the plc

>>17791036 (OP)
Completely misunderstood by 90% of /his/ because they are not actually interested in history or just like to bait people. It's an oversimplification but I view them similar to Tibet as a "experimental society". At one point they had about 13% of their population as nobility, the highest in Europe. Rebellion against the crown was legal. Nobility was detached from economic standing so many nobles were not the rich aristocrats you usually think of, sometimes having to plough land themselves. Yet the power nobility wielded enticed foreign nobility to join the commonwealth and it's sometimes how they expanded their holdings.

The foundation and powerbase of the PLC was the petty nobility. Rich magnates had all the power but the petty nobility were the ones who fought and ran the country from day to day. They were the ones who founded the hussars and ulhans and organized farmland and cast their physical votes. When never ending wars damaged the folwark system the petty nobles broke and the country collapsed. You let knights run a kingdom and you get the PLC.

>>17791202
that is wrong tho
the bad thing mostly happened in the east, with arenda system and it was typical colony extraction shit

>>17791227
I also recommend the primary source of Dr Bernard's Connor "History of Poland" when he visited Poland. It's a first hand account from a Irish doctor that importantly notes that the situation across the country was very varied, peasants were treated differently across the kingdom. Plus it's a fun read

>>17791036 (OP)
Globohomo of the early modern era

>>17791234
it isn't tho? ottoman sultans went to extreme lengths to prevent landowners from exercising too much power over tenants, precisely because they didn't want to get cucked by a strong feudal aristocracy like the monarchs of christian europe. ottoman christians were ***not*** tied to their land unlike polish serfs, their biggest issue was heavy taxation (which could be avoided by moving to a waqf, entering a tax-exempt profession like cattle breeding or falcon husbandry, and of course converting to Islam).

look at the plc and the opposite scenario abounds, where nobles bully the king relentlessly and possess total control over their estates. peasants are kept under strict lock and key with 0 personal freedom, they can be bought and sold like chattel, etc... why would anyone run away to the steppe and risk getting abducted by tatars if this weren't the case?

>>17791036 (OP)
I think about it about as often as I think about Uzbekistan