page_title: History of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1648)
section_title: Attempts to subordinate Russia
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1648) / Attempts to subordinate Russia
context_page_description: The history of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1648) covers a period in the history of Poland and Lithuania, before their joint state was subjected to devastating wars in the middle of the 17th century. The Union of Lublin of 1569 established the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a more closely unified federal state, replacing the previously existing personal union of the two countries. The Union was largely run by the Polish and increasingly Polonized Lithuanian and Ruthenian nobility, through the system of the central parliament and local assemblies, but from 1573 led by elected kings. The formal rule of the proportionally more numerous than in other European countries nobility constituted a sophisticated early democratic system, in contrast to the absolute monarchies prevalent at that time in the rest of Europe.
  The Polish–Lithuanian Union had become an influential player in Europe and a vital cultural entity, spreading Western culture eastward. In the second half of the 16th and the first half of the 17th century, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a huge state in central-eastern Europe, with an area approaching one million square kilometers.
context_section_description: After the deaths of Ivan IV and in 1598 of his son Feodor, the last tsars of the Rurik Dynasty, Russia entered a period of severe dynastic, economic and social crisis and instability. As Boris Godunov encountered resistance from both the peasant masses and the boyar opposition, in the Commonwealth the ideas of turning Russia into a subordinated ally, either through a union, or an imposition of a ruler dependent on the Polish–Lithuanian establishment, were rapidly coming into play.
  In 1600 Lew Sapieha led a Commonwealth mission to Moscow to propose a union with the Russian state, patterned after the Polish–Lithuanian Union, with the boyars granted rights comparable with those of the Commonwealth's nobility. A decision on a single monarch was to be postponed until the death of the current king or tsar. Boris Godunov, at that time also engaged in negotiations with Charles of Sweden, wasn't interested in that close a relationship and only a twenty-year truce was agreed upon in 1602.
  In order to continue their efforts, the magnates took advantage of the earlier death of Tsarevich Dmitry (1591) under mysterious circumstances and of the appearance of False Dmitriy I, a pretender-impostor claiming to be the tsarevich. False Dmitriy was able to secure the cooperation and help of the Wiśniowiecki family and of Jerzy Mniszech, Voivode of Sandomierz, whom he promised vast Russian estates and a marriage with the voivode's daughter Marina. Dmitriy became a Catholic and leading an army of adventurers raised in the Commonwealth, with the tacit support of Sigismund III entered in 1604 the Russian state. After the death of Boris Godunov and the murder of his son Feodor, False Dmitriy I became the Tsar of Russia, and remained in that capacity until killed during a popular turmoil in 1606, which also eliminated the Polish presence in Moscow.
  Russia under the new tsar Vasili Shuysky remained unstable. A new false Dmitriy materialized and Tsaritsa Marina had even "recognized" in him her thought-to-be-dead husband. With a new army provided largely by the magnates of the Commonwealth, False Dmitriy II approached Moscow and made futile attempts to take the city. Tsar Vasili IV, seeking help from King Charles IX of Sweden, agreed to territorial concessions in Sweden's favor and in 1609 the Russo-Swedish anti-Dmitriy and anti-Commonwealth alliance was able to remove the threat from Moscow and strengthen Vasili. The alliance and the Swedish involvement in Russian affairs caused a direct military intervention on the part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, instigated and led by King Sigismund III, with the support of the Roman Curia.
  The Polish army commenced a siege of Smolensk and the Russo-Swedish relief expedition was defeated in 1610 by Hetman Żółkiewski at the Battle of Klushino. The victory strengthened the position of the compromise-oriented faction of Russian boyars, which had already been interested in offering the Moscow throne to Władysław Vasa, son of Sigismund III. Fyodor Nikitich Romanov, the Patriarch of Moscow, was one of the leaders of the boyars. Under arrangements negotiated by Żółkiewski, the boyars deposed Tsar Vasili and accepted Władysław in return for peace, no annexation of Russia into the Commonwealth, the Prince's conversion to the Orthodox religion, and privileges, including exclusive rights to high offices in the Tsardom granted to the Russian nobility. After the agreement was signed and Władysław declared tsar, the Commonwealth forces entered the Kremlin (1610).
  Sigismund III subsequently rejected the compromise solution and demanded the tsar's throne for himself, which would mean complete subjugation of Russia, and as such was rejected by the bulk of the Russian society. Sigismund's refusal and demands only intensified the chaos, as the Swedes proposed their own candidate and took over Veliki Novgorod. The result of this situation and of the ruthless Commonwealth occupation in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia was the 1611 popular Russian anti-Polish uprising, heavy fighting in Moscow and a siege of the Polish garriso
caption: Battle of Klushino (1610)
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