page_title: Polish–Lithuanian–Muscovite Commonwealth
section_title: Russian Succession
hierarchical_section_title: Polish–Lithuanian–Muscovite Commonwealth / History / Russian Succession
context_page_description: The Polish–Lithuanian–Muscovite Commonwealth was a proposed state that would have been based on a personal union between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Tsardom of Russia. A number of serious attempts, by various means, to create such a union took place between 1574 and 1658, and even as late as the latter part of the 18th century, but it has never materialized due to incompatible demands from both sides.
  The proposed union is known in Polish historiography as the Triple Union and has also been called the Polish–Russian Union or Polish–Muscovite Union. No well-established term for this entity exists in English-language histories.
context_section_description: The mixed circle of the proponents of this idea saw an opportunity in Russia after Ivan the Terrible, the last Russian ruler of that time whose legitimacy was never questioned, died. The proposal was revived soon after Ivan's death, through the reigns of Stefan Batory in Poland and Feodor I in Russia. After Batory's death in 1587, Feodor I became quite interested in acquiring the Polish throne, and sent a diplomatic mission to Poland. His support among the Lithuanians was high, but Poles issued several demands, among them requiring Fedors's conversion to Catholicism, an absolutely unthinkable event. Eventually Sigismund III Vasa was elected the king of Poland. Death of Feodor prompted Sigismund to propose his candidacy for the Moscow throne, however by the time Polish diplomatic mission arrived in Moscow, Boris Godunov was elected the new tsar.
  With the legitimacy issues clouding the entire period of the rule of Boris Godunov, Russia submerged into even greater chaos upon his death, the Russian Time of Troubles, which was accompanied by a decisive Polish armed intervention, or the Polish–Muscovite War (1605–1618), commonly referred to in Russia as the Polish intervention in the end-17th century. In the course of the Polish–Muscovite War, the Polish prince (later king) Władysław IV Vasa was briefly elected a Russian Tsar among other such strange developments like enthronement and short reign of False Dmitriy I, an impostor of tsar Ivan's son. However, Wladyslaw was never officially enthroned and his quick election remained in history as one of the fluke events of Russia's Time of Troubles.
  The idea was again proposed in 1656–1658, when Moscow suggested that one of the points of negotiations would be the election of the Russian tsar for the Polish throne. This time it was the Polish side which presented demands (conversion to Catholicism, territorial changes) that eventually discouraged Russians from pursuing this project.
caption: Władysław Vasa of Poland claimed the Russian throne
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