Class 9. Polish Power and Cossack Revolution (3)
So the encounter between Poland and Lithuania
is kind of a two way thing.
A Lithuanian family is ruling Poland for almost 200 years.
Fine.
The Lithuanians preserve the court
of the Grand Duke in Vilnius
and they have their own administration,
they have their own language of law, which is,
I'm gonna be so happy if you guys know this.
Chancery Slavonic, but you took the last class, right?
I'm outing you, okay.
Chancery Slavonic.
So, this would be a great exam question, by the way.
The Chancery Slavonic comes from where?
Cyril and Methodius trying
to convert the Moravians, failing,
their successors, taking the language to Bulgaria,
that language coming to Kyiv as the language of religion.
Kyivan Rus taking that language
and turning it into a language of politics and law.
After the fall of Kyiv to the Mongols,
that language migrates to north Vilnius.
And so in this grand circle, right, which lasts,
you know, eight centuries or so,
by the time the Lithuanian statutes
are written in the 16th century,
there are three statutes of Lithuania.
And they are there in part
to distinguish Lithuanian law from Polish law.
They're written in Chancery Slavonic,
so the point is, this is an inheritance from Kyiv, right?
This is an inheritance from Rus.
So, things are going both ways, but in general,
the high culture is spreading from west to east.
So people in Poland are not learning Lithuanian,
but people, nobles in Lithuania
are learning the Polish language.
And this is a time in which the Polish language is very,
is flowering thanks to the Renaissance
and is also a powerful language of disputation,
thanks to the Reformation.
So the Polish language becomes the language
of the literate people in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania,
which includes, again, Belaya Rus and Ukraine.
By about, as far as we can tell,
by about 1640 most serious discussions
in what's now Ukraine among theologians,
educated people were taking place in the Polish language.
Okay, so this brings us to the attitude towards Moscow.
So in Lithuania, the attitude towards Moscow
was necessarily different than in Poland, why?
Because Lithuania was a direct neighbor of Moscow.
The Lithuanians were more or less constantly
fighting wars with Moscow, the Lithuanians,
most of them were Orthodox, and very often they were related
to people on the other side.
And the Lithuanians, until the time,
many Lithuanians at least
until the time of Ivan the Terrible
had the idea that we can make a deal
with the Muscovites, right?
The Poles might not be involved.
We can make some kind of separate deal with the Muscovites.
When this ends and when Poland and the Lithuania
are brought together is with Ivan the Terrible
and the Livonian wars.
I think I mentioned this a couple of lectures ago.
It's a very interesting thing to think about right now.
When Russia is fighting a war in Europe,
which has had this surprising consequence
of bringing European powers together.
And everyone is making historical analogies.
Is this like the first World War?
Is it like the second World War?
You know, is it like 1917?
Is it like the Russian Revolution?
But, one analogy, which people aren't making a lot,
but which you guys are gonna be able to make
and I'm sure you will, like, at your next party
when you're talking about yourself.
I wanna tell you all about me.
I know about the 1560s.
In the Livonian Wars, that's when Ivan the Terrible,
as you'll remember, that's when he overreaches, right?
He has that fateful thing
that you don't wanna do, which is overreach.
And the problem with overreaching is that you never know,
you never know until you've done
and then until it's too late.
Like that's the tragedy of overreach.
Like, should I talk about myself
for five minutes or 10 minutes?
Oh no, it should have been five minutes!
So he overreaches in the Livonian Wars,
and this has the consequence
of bringing Lithuania and Poland together.
So we're now gonna tell this story not
from the Muscovite point of view,
but from the Lithuanian Polish point of view.
The Livonian Wars were the great opportunity
for probably the greatest Polish King, who was Zygmunt II.
Sigismund II, Zygmunt II,
who ruled technically from 1520 when he was crowned
as a boy until 1572.
So Zigmunt II Grand Duke of Lithuania, king of Poland,
he is the big winner in the Livonian Wars,
whereas Ivan is the big loser.
So Livonia, you'll remember.
it sounds like a fairy tale name, right?
Livonia, it's basically Latvia Estonia today.
The Livonian state is the successor
of the Teutonic state in the Baltic.
Livonia exists as a German-speaking state
because of the Teutonic Knights.
These are Baltic territories, which they do seize,
where the Lithuanians don't stop them,
they then convert to Protestantism as many Germans did.
We have to remember, I know it's tough,
but like while I'm talking,
the Renaissance and the Reformation are taking place,
you know, not in the background, but also in the foreground.
So they convert to Protestantism
and the Grandmaster of the Livonian Order
asks for Polish protection.
And then they also ask in the north for Swedish protection,
which leads to this very complicated war.
But from the Polish point of view,
what happens is that this
brings Poland and Lithuania together.
And the Livonian Wars, the Lithuanian nobles
understand we have to fight Muscovy.
We're not gonna be making a deal.
And their Grand Duke, also the Polish king Zygmunt II
goes to the Polish parliament and says,
we need to fight a war, we need to raise taxes.
It's an interesting moment because he appears,
this is a very kind of modern political moment.
He appears in Polish dress, right, in order.
So how you dress and what language you speak,
very important.
He appears in Polish dress to make the speech
about how we have to go to the field.
We have to raise taxes.
Oh, what is, okay, this one is really hard.
All right, although I just dropped a keyword.
What did he normally wear?
What did he normally wear, do you think?
- [Student] Lithuanian clothes.
- Okay, 200 years ago, that was right.
Like that's where they, when Jagiello was showed up,
he was like, he was wearing fur
and like unmistakably Lithuanian.
What was cool in the 1560s?
Yeah.
- [Student] Well, in Polish, but basically it's
something they got as a contribution
from Turks and the Macedonians.
- Okay.
- [Student] In Turkish fashion.
- All right, in combat, that's true.
And we'll talk about that.
He was wearing Italianate Renaissance costume.
That's what he normally wore.
He normally wore Italian Renaissance costume.
That's what he, you know, puffy hat.
That's what he normally wore.
So on, exception because this was the Renaissance, right?
I realize we hadn't enough time to get into all of this,
but this was the Renaissance.
This was the Renaissance.
His mother was Italian, his court was largely Italian.
He normally wore it as one did at the time,
he normally looked Italian, okay?
So with the Zygmunt II dresses in Polish garb,
calls parliament in order to raise taxes, right?
So, remember this is the way it works back then.
Parliament shows up.
What are you gonna give me?
We're gonna give you some land after a war.
What else are you gonna give me?
Okay, I'm gonna give you a bunch of land
that was also part of the deal.
Zygmunt II gave the nobles a bunch of land.
What else are you gonna give me?
Okay, we'll let you elect the kings.
Promise, you can elect the next king,
because theoretically they've been
electing kings for a long time.
But somehow it always worked out
that even though there was an election,
it was always a Jagiello.
It was like one Jagiello after another for,
so, you know, for 200 years.
Okay, fine, next time you can really elect the king.
And that actually the next time they really
did elect the king, which is another chapter
which we're gonna get to.
So Zygmunt II, this is like a wonderful story of like,
of a king achieving, overcoming his own youth.
In his youth, he had like various Lithuanian romances,
and there was a Lithuanian prince
who thought he had 'em in his back pocket
because of these romances, but no, Zygmunt II
gathers the Lithuanians and the Poles,
goes to the battlefield,
they win the Livonian Wars, basically.
Poland expands northward into Livonia,
and Lithuania takes part, Poland takes part.
And in trying to then establish a new political equilibrium,
Zygmunt II does the thing which begins
to define what Ukraine is going to be.
And that is that Zygmunt II in something
called the Union of Lublin, 1569 recreates Poland-Lithuania,
not as a personal union.
So for 200 years, it's been a personal union.
You're the Grand Duke and you're the Polish King.
Now it's gonna be a constitutional union.
So by definition, the leader of Poland
and the leader of Lithuania,
you're gonna be the same person constitutionally, okay?
And that person's gonna be elected, great.
And we're gonna call it a republic.
It's the Polish-Lithuanian Republic, Rzeczpospolita.
But, and here's the but,
which is crucial to Ukrainian history.
Zygmunt II in the Union of Lublin,
and it seems like a footnote to the Poles
and also sometimes the Lithuanians,
but for the Ukrainians is not a footnote at all.
In the Union of Lublin,
it's still a Polish Lithuanian state.
But the border between Poland and Lithuania
is changed drastically,
such that now the Ukrainian part
is part of the Polish crown,
and Lithuania is much smaller than it was before.
Why is this so important?
This is hugely important because it means that suddenly,
no longer is there Lithuanian law in Ukraine,
but now there is Polish law in Ukraine.
So just to give you a very important central example.
Now, Polish nobles can own land in Ukraine, which is,
it's like the opening of the frontier, basically.
In fact, it is like an opening in the frontier
because these are rich lands, agricultural lands.
And again, I know this stuff is happening in the background
and is tough, but this is also the age of discovery,
the age of exploration.
It's the first globalization, the 16th century,
and all that grain that you can raise
by enserfing Ukrainian peasants,
you can then sell on the world market
and get gold and silver.
So suddenly, it's like a globalization,
which involves the Ukrainian steppe.
Okay, and so anyway, but I wanna be clear,
there's now a new line which didn't exist before.
There was never a line.
If you imagine the northern border of Ukraine now,
Ukrainian Belaya Rus, that line was never there before.
As of 1569, there is something like that line.
As of 1569, the notions of Ukraine and Belaya Rus
start to make sense.
That old territory, which is all part of Rus,
now will follow two distinct routes.
The Belaya Russian part will have more to do with Lithuania.
The Ukrainian part will have more to do with Poland,
dramatically to do with Poland.
Okay, what's all the drama?
What's all the drama?
Number one, the drama is language.
The drama is language.
In the Renaissance,
there's something called the language question,
which is fateful for, you know, many of us.
The written language question is,
do you keep using Latin or do you take the vernacular
and you turn the vernacular
into a language of literature and education?
So up until that time, it was normal
for universities to be using Latin,
and it was normal to write, even novels,
correspondence in Latin.
But in the language question, which was answered by Dante,
and the answer was, make up Italian, create in Italian,
which is, it sounds easy when I say it that way,
