The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the future of Europe

[This post and its associated comments were originally published on Cohost.]

I try to resist the siren call of “someone is wrong on the Internet,” and also try not to comment on topics where I have no personal knowledge or haven’t done much research. I’m going to break those two rules a bit today.

In reading about the Russo-Ukraine war, I’ve noticed a strain of commentary to the effect that everything would have been fine if NATO had not expanded eastward (or, alternatively, been invited to expand eastward) in the 1990s and 2000s. Counterfactuals are always tricky, and I don’t have any special knowledge that would make my opinion an informed one, so I’ll make no comment on that claim.

Another comment I’ve seen (and I’m kicking myself because I can’t find the source now) is that it is in the natural order of things, and a foreordained matter of geography, that Germany and Russia between themselves will control and exercise influence over the lands between Europe and Asia.

Is it possible that this will be the case in the future? Of course. Is it probable that this will be the case? I don’t know enough to judge this. Is it an absolute certainty that this will be the case? Almost certainly not, because within the last few hundred years there was an existence proof to the contrary, namely the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

I must confess that until recently I had never heard of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth—an indication that the education of Americans like me neglected the history of Eastern Europe relative to that of Western Europe. (It’s not even a question of “Eurocentrism”; I recall my history classes having much more material on, say, China, India, and Japan than they did on Eastern Europe.)

You can read the Wikipedia article for yourself, but the basic idea is that up until the time of the American and French revolutions there was a polity (technically, a union of two polities) that at its maximum extent encompassed all or significant portions of the current nations of Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, and even Russia. (See the left map above.)

The Commonwealth at its height had a territory of almost 1 million square kilometers and a population of about 12 million. (As a comparison, the population of England and then the United Kingdom did not exceed 10 million people until around 1800.) It had a relatively modern political system for its time, in which monarchs were elected by the aristocracy, with a legislature—also controlled by the aristocracy—that served as a check on the monarch. (Again, compare this to the political structure of England at the same time.)

Over time the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth dwindled in power, until in the late 18th century its territory was partitioned between the Kingdom of Prussia (the core of what eventually became Germany), the Russian Empire (precursor to the Soviet Union and now the Russian Federation), and the Hapsburg Empire (which gave rise to present-day Austria and Hungary). (See the right map above.)

But before that there was a time when the people and lands between Europe and Asia were not under the sway of Germany and Russia, but pursued their own course. Could this be the case again in future? Again, I have no special expertise to bring to this question, but there are two suggestive factors.

The first is the extensive military and other support provided to Ukraine by Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia; together these comprise all of the countries whose territories made up the former Commonwealth, except for Belarus and (of course) Russia. Commentators have spoken of Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic states, along with the Scandanavian countries of Finland, Sweden, and Norway, as potentially forming a new center of gravity within Europe, comparable to the historical grouping of France, Germany, and their Western European neighbors.

The second factor is more speculative. The ecologist-turned-historian Peter Turchin has claimed that the dynamics of the historical evolution of societies favor the creation of new empires on what he calls “metaethnic frontiers” or “metaethnic fault lines”: “A small group near such a boundary will be confronted by very different others, dwarfing in their ‘otherness’ neighboring groups that are on the same side of the metaethnic line.”¹ Turchin’s hypothesis is that conflicts are more likely at such boundaries, especially if they also coincide with political boundaries, and that such conflicts will cause co-ethnics to band together (or be forced together), intensify their common identification and cooperation with each other, and eventually found new and dominant polities.

Traditionally metaethnic formations were determined by such factors as common descent, common languages, and common religions. However one can also conceive of such formations as based on commonly-held political, economic, and cultural beliefs and tendencies—hence the idea that there is a “Europe” characterized by liberal democracy as the preferred form of government (however imperfectly implemented it may be at times), the free market system plus social insurance as the preferred form of the economy, and a fair degree of cultural toleration and even experimentation.

Today’s hypothesized metaethnic frontier would then consist of those countries that exist in the frontier zone between “Europe” in this sense and “not-Europe,” i.e., the countries that are not characterized by the beliefs and tendencies listed above. If Turchin’s theory is correct, one would expect to see the rise in power and influence of those countries over time if and as conflicts across that metaethnic boundary persist—the current war being one such.

Will the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth rise again from the ashes like a phoenix? Almost certainly not, at least in that form. But might we see new alignments arise that remind us of it? It‘s certainly a possibility, and I suspect more of a possibility than the geopolitical realities of 19th and 20th century Europe persisting through the 21st.

Mightfo (@Mightfo) - 2022-12-30 23:42

It’s definitely true that Russia and Germany are not simply going to assert control over their inter-region. I think that’s very much a loose extrapolation from a narrow period of history. Russia has only had about 300 years of being particularly strong, which is significant and doesnt go away quickly, but pales in comparison to the geopolitical endurance of China, or (to a lesser extent) France and Iran. And new eras totally change the game of “What allows a country to be dominant?” Gunpowder nullifies nomadic armies, economic growth replaces the zero-sum focus on war, and the emphasis on ideological-moral-cultural axes make ~1920 onward fundamentally different.

I think it is very easy for people to forget that patterns from the last 30, 50, 100, 200 years are often temporary, contextual blips. There are so many things we take for granted- for example, ~200 years ago, the Russian language was very underdeveloped. Their literary culture had few forms and was incredibly awkward and limited, leading to educated Russians relying on French. Western European cultures were all in a similar situation 100-400 years prior. It is very difficult for people right now to imagine what it is like to have a vastly less developed language and literary culture, and the effects on the rest of culture, politics, etc etc are immense. Besides that being an interesting point, I think it also demonstrates how much and how rapidly things change in ways we have no real perspective for.

Taking any sort of “well, in realpolitik terms, obviously Russia is going to try to dominate this area, you just gotta accept it” approach is not only historically blind extrapolation but also morally questionable. Realism is good, but realism does not mean giving up action and acting like something is ossified.

Poland-Lithuania is definitely fascinating. I’ve wondered if it survived, or if Austria reformed into a democratic “Danubian United States” like Franz Ferdinand was considering, if that may’ve prevented a lot of the horrors of 20th century Europe due to Germany and Russia. If Prussia or the Ottomans hadn’t risen, the history of the area from the Balkans to the Baltic could’ve been very fundamentally different.

Europe east of Germany and Italy is definitely neglected in history classes, which is part of why I’ve always had a particular interest in central and eastern europe. I only learned about Poland-Lithuania relatively early(in high school) because I was a voracious history nerd with “contrarian” interests.

A more loosely adopted version of Turchin’s hypothesis like you mentioned is pretty fascinating. I do think it is pretty difficult to actually holistically analyze though. I can think of some massive cross-region conflicts- nomadic vs sedentary, religion vs religion, fascist vs nonfascist, democratic vs authoritarian, capitalist vs communist, but a lot of those are dominated by preexisting large powers rather than bands of smaller polities, so there’s not much ability to actually evaluate that supposed tendency on its own terms rather than on a “great power harnessing a sphere of influence” framework.

Also, this is verging off topic, but heres a random underdeveloped personal pet theory regarding spheres of power/motion: While things like economic power and what i will call “accountability and proficiency” are major vectors for power in the future, I suspect that another major one is communicative. I suspect a very large advantage that US culture has had is that English is spoken in the USA and the Commonwealth countries, allowing for a large base of easier cultural creation and exchange. The convenient talent pool is larger, the audience is larger, and thus the opportunities for cultural creation of all size is larger, allowing for more capacity to create media and ideas that are strong enough to sizably jump to other languages and affect other cultures. China is another example of another country that has a large ’base’ for this that could end up very potent. Japan is an example of something that punches above its language population in this regard- I suspect that part of this is due to distinctive visual culture’s ability to cross barriers.

Here is a video you may find fascinating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk0IZsshET0 I think people are generally unaware of how unstable the situation in central/eastern europe was for several years after WW1, and the video demonstrates some interesting aspecst during the nascent stages of Ukrainian nationalism.

Frank Hecker (@hecker) - 2022-12-31 00:09

Thank you for your comment, and for the video link!

Incidentally, if you are interested in Turchin’s theories, he did treatments of them in War and Peace and War and Ultrasociety for general audiences. (Historical Dynamics is much more technical, with a fair amount of math and lots of computer simulations.) It’s all part of what he and others call “cliodynamics,” i.e., bringing extensive data collection and mathematical modeling to questions about the historical evolution of societies. There’s an open-access journal you might find interesting: Cliodynamics: The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution.

Mightfo (@Mightfo) - 2022-12-31 00:26

Interesting, thanks! I will check that out.