Tell me about them. Their condition of living, was it a good country for it's time, military strength, general acts of badassery, religion and other facts I should know about the lovely mix of baltic and slavic kingdoms!
Oh my fucking god it was awful.
One of the darker periods in lithuanian history, rivaled only by the nazi and soviet occupations
>>1161552
Oh dear. That so?
>>1161535
Comparatively sparsely populated except for the Polish core lands.
Harsher serfdom instituted than was common during the Middle Ages
Elective monarchy which meant strong nobles/magnates
All in all live as gentry or noble was probably quite a bit of fun and rich city merchants or craftsman didn't have it bad either, but for your average rural fuck it was quite a bit shittier than being a farmer in Western European countries. Side effect of the serfdom was that urbanization never really took off which hurted Poland in the long run.
>>1161558
Oh before you start quoting wikipedia on urbanization they state settlements with over 500 people are urban, this is not a typical figure used.
>>1161535
Oh my fucking God it was great!
One of the brightest periods in Polish history, rivaled only by country's rapid development in 1930s'!
>>1161557
In reality though historical Grand Duchy of Lithuania is mostly modern Belarus so you should rather ask Belarussians not Lithuanians about their opinions.
They like this period of history btw. The Commonwealth was an interesting project that in some ways was way ahead of its time.
>>1161584
Geographically, you are correct. However that's like asking modern british people whether they liked being under roman rule.
>>1161584
Interesting =/= good for anyone except our enemies
>>1161578
In all seriousness though - it was a great concept, had its ups and downs. Except for last 100 years it was mostly positive. The biggest problems were magnates with their damn privileges and those few dumb(Henry de Valois, Sigismund Vasa, Michał Wiśniowiecki, Wettins, Poniatowski) and unlucky(only Jan Kazimierz comes to mind) rulers.
>>1161584
And that's soviet bullshit, my friend. In reality Gand Duchy was created by rulers from Aukštaitija(Auksztota) who they managed to conquer the Ruthenians. I'm not saying Belarussians aren't successors of the Grand Duchy either, but it was ancestors of nowadays Lithuanians who created the GDL.
>>1161584
>In reality though historical Grand Duchy of Lithuania is mostly modern Belarus
>They like this period of history btw
>>1161622
Yes.
>Polish
>Lithuanian
>Commonwealth
>>1161632
t. salty Habsburg who never got his candidate on the throne
PLC looks nice and powerful on the maps and in grand-strategy games but they were for most of their history absolutely crippled by the powerful magnates and every noble having veto power in Sejm meant that nothing got done.
There were plenty of good and progressive ideas as well especially for the time when the Commonwealth was born.
>>1161643
It was basically a Polish silver age. Meaning that the best years were behind it (16th century) but it was still strong and won some impressive victories. However the political system had some flaws that, after years of working just fine, were used against it by its enemies.
The eastern borders of the Commonwealth were hardcore though. Wild East in the steppe.
>>1161657
Yeah the Eastern and Southern (Ukraine) borders were pretty rough and honestly quite loosely "controlled" by the state in any form.
I'm not sure of this but weren't most territorial expansion especially in east and south driven mainly by individual powerful magnates instead of as active military campaigns by the state as it was?
>>1161552
>one of the darker periods in lithuanian history
>implying Lithuania has any history apart from the commonwealth and the nazi/soviet occupations
gerai pavarei
>>1161600
>And that's soviet bullshit, my friend
Not even Soviet, it's Belarusian nationalists trying to compensate for the fact that national sense of the general population is almost non-existent and official Belarusian history pretty much starts and ends with WW2. Thus you get WE WUZ LITVINZ N SHIET GIB VILNA VITAUT WUZ BELARUSIAN
I think official Soviet historiography pretty much tried to keep Lithuania under the rug because neither positions were beneficial for Russians.
But I feel sad for Belarus so whatever, that Soviet republic they live in right now is a hellhole.
>>1161662
There wasn't anyone to fight per se. The steppes only had some niggers raiding, Bratslav Voivodeship (that's near Vinnytsia) was constantly raided and Cherkasy was essentially a frontier settlement.
Therefore it was mostly "peaceful". People ran away from serfdom to find a better life, some becoming cossacks. Magnates themselves encouraged people to settle by giving significant tax cuts and freedoms to the ones brave enough to go there too.
>>1161677
LDK strong, pydaraste
