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The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, [b] formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania [c] and also referred to as Poland–Lithuania or the First Polish Republic, [d] [9] [10] was a federative real union [11] between the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, existing from 1569 to 1795.
The former territory of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as a part of the Brandenburg–Prussia, Habsburg Empire, and Russian Empire after the third partition in 1795 Kosciuszko's insurgent armies , who fought to regain Polish territory, won some initial successes but they eventually fell before the forces of the Russian Empire. [ 89 ]
By the beginning of the 18th century, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous European states, was little more than a pawn of its neighbors (the Russian Empire, Prussia and Austria), who interfered in its domestic politics almost at will.
The residual Polish kingdom was joined to the Russian Empire in a personal union under the Russian tsar and it was allowed its own constitution and military. East of the kingdom, large areas of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth remained directly incorporated into the Russian Empire as the Western Krai .
The British Empire (red) and Mongol Empire (blue) were the largest and second-largest empires in history, respectively. The precise extent of either empire at its greatest territorial expansion is a matter of debate among scholars.
King Sigismund II Augustus and Queen Barbara Radziwiłł in Vilnius by Jan Matejko. The Polish Golden Age (Polish: Złoty Wiek Polski [ˈzwɔ.tɘ ˈvjɛk ˈpɔl.ski] ⓘ) was the Renaissance period in the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, roughly corresponding to the period of the Jagiellonian dynasty (1386-1572).
The Polish-Lithuanian state was dominated by the Russian Empire from the time of Peter the Great. This foreign control reached its climax under Catherine the Great, and involved at that time also the Kingdom of Prussia and the Austrian Habsburg monarchy. During the later part of the 18th century the Commonwealth recovered economically ...
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth occupied approximately 1 million km 2 (390,000 sq mi) at its peak and was the largest state in Europe. [79] [80] Simultaneously, Poland imposed Polonisation policies in newly acquired territories which were met with resistance from ethnic and religious minorities. [78]