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In the sixth part of our Brief History of Poland series, Notes from Poland editor-at-large Stanley Bill looks at the eighteenth-century decline and fall of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, covering the period between 1697 and 1795. He examines the Saxon kings, the descent into political disorder, the Enlightenment and reform, Hasidic Judaism, the Constitution of the Third of May, and the three partitions that wiped the Commonwealth from the map of Europe.
The Brief History of Poland series covers over a thousand years of Polish political and cultural history, from 966 until today.
Producer: Sebastian Leśniewski
Check out the previous episode in our Brief History of Poland series – below.
Main image credit: Allegory of the First Partition of Poland (c. 1773), by Noël Lemire (under public domain).
Stanley Bill is the founder and editor-at-large of Notes from Poland. He is also Professor of Polish Studies and Director of the Polish Studies Programme at the University of Cambridge. He has spent more than ten years living in Poland, mostly based in Kraków and Bielsko-Biała.
He is the Chair of the Board of the Notes from Poland Foundation.
