You can also listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and other podcast directories.
In the fifth part of our Brief History of Poland series, Notes from Poland editor-at-large Stanley Bill looks at the war-torn seventeenth century and the beginnings of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth’s decline, covering the period between 1582 and 1699. He examines the Polish occupation of the Moscow Kremlin, the Counter-Reformation and the Baroque, Sarmatian culture, Ukraine and the Khmelnytsky Uprising, conflict with the Ottoman Turks, and the Battle of Vienna.
The Brief History of Poland series will cover 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: Cossacks fighting Tatars from the Crimean Khanate (c. 1890), by Józef Brandt (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.