ThePolish–Lithuanian identity describes individuals and groups with histories in thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth or with close connections to its culture. This federation, formally established by the 1569Union of Lublin between theKingdom of Poland andGrand Duchy of Lithuania, created amulti-ethnic andmulti-confessional state founded on the binding powers ofnational identity and sharedculture rather thanethnicity orreligious affiliation.^[1][2] The term "Polish–Lithuanian" has been used to describe various groups residing in the Commonwealth, including those that did not share thePolish orLithuanian ethnicity nor their predominantRoman Catholic faith.^[3][4][5][6]

The usage of "Polish–Lithuanian" in this context can potentially be confusing, particularly as the term is often abbreviated to just "Polish", or misinterpreted as being a simple mix of the 20th-century nationalistic usage of the terms "Polish" and "Lithuanian",^[1][3] as, depending on the context, it may include numerousethnic groups that inhabited the Commonwealth.

Self-identifications during the existence of thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth often made use of theLatin 'gens-natione' construct (familial or ethnic origin combined with a national identity).^[7] The construct was used by the elite inhabitants of theGrand Duchy of Lithuania, by theRuthenian (Ukrainian and Belarusian) elites, and inPrussia. Religious affiliation was sometimes added, leading to self-identifications such asNatione Polonus, gente Prussicus (Polish by nationality, of the Prussian people); orNatione Polonus, gente Ruthenus, origine Judaeus (Polish by nationality, of the Ruthenian people, and of Jewish origin).^[8][9] The Latin phrasing reflects the use of that language as a neutrallingua franca, which continued into the 18th century.^[10]

The Commonwealth’s nobility (Szlachta) were also bound together during this era by a widespread belief inSarmatism that transcended ethnic identifications.^[11] This origin myth posited that the Commonwealth’s noble class stemmed from a group of warriors fromScythia, that its members were racially distinct from and superior to the other inhabitants of the area, and that various features of the Commonwealth displayed its superiority.^[12][13] The Ruthenian nobility of the Commonwealth subscribed to Sarmatism to some extent as well, as part of a Sarmatian branch known as "Roxolanians".^[14] Lithuanian elites developed a theory about their Roman origins – most known is Palemonian myth andPalemonids. The theory of the Roman descent of Lithuanians heretofore mostly used to be considered as emerging duringVytautas the Great times (1392–1430), withLithuania as a 'corrupted' form ofl'ltalia.^[15]Maciej Stryjkowski andAugustinus Rotundus were strong proponents of using Latin as an official language ofGrand Duchy of Lithuania due to their belief that the Lithuanian language was simply avernacular variety of Latin. Their belief was based on grammatical similarities of Lithuanian and Latin.

TheLublin Union of 1569 initiated voluntaryPolonization of theLithuanian upper classes, including increasing use of thePolish language, although they retained a strong sense of Lithuanian identity.^[16] Those who identified themselves asgente Lithuanus, natione Polonus ("a Lithuanian person of the Polish nation") were distinguished by their accent, customs, and cuisine, and did not perceive the categories as mutually exclusive.^[17] A diminishing portion ofLithuanian nobility and most of the rural population in the territories of theGrand Duchy of Lithuania continued to use theLithuanian language, especially inSamogitia, a practice that reached its nadir in the 18th century, and increased during the 19th-centuryLithuanian National Revival.^[18][19] According toNorman Davies, till the Revival, Lithuanian had no^{[dubious –discuss]} agreed upon written form andLithuanian literature was mostly religious, and the language was rarely^{[dubious –discuss]} heard in the Grand Duchy's capital ofVilnius.^[19] Lithuanian humanistsStanislovas Rapolionis (1485–1545),Abraomas Kulvietis (1510–1545),Mikalojus Daukša (1527–1613),Konstantinas Sirvydas (1579–1631) promoted the use of Lithuanian language as part of identity. Famous for his eloquence, Sirvydas spent 10 years of his life preaching sermons atSt. John's church in Vilnius (twice a day – once in Lithuanian, and once in Polish).^[20]

The adjectival terms Lithuanian and Polish-Lithuanian have been used to describe groups residing in the Commonwealth that did not share the Lithuanian ethnicity nor their pre-dominantChristian (Catholic) faith,^[3] for example in the description of theLipka Tatars (Lithuanian Tatars), aMuslim community,^[4] andLitvaks (Lithuanian Jews), a significant Jewish community.^[5]Eastern Orthodox andUniate communities also played a role in the Commonwealth's history.^[6]

German minority, heavily represented in the towns (burghers), particularly in theRoyal Prussia region, was another group with ties to that culture ("Natione Polonus-gente Prussicus").^[9][13] Many Prussians from that region identified themselves not as Germans nor Poles, but as the citizens of the multicultural Commonwealth.^[13][21]

During theGreat Sejm, when the question of Lithuania's relationship to the Crown, in the sense of their closer fusion, would find expression in the voices of progressive deputies and in patriotic literature, which stated that "the Lithuanian lands are Polish land, and the Polish provinces are, conversely, Lithuanian land."^[22]

The Commonwealth ceased to exist after the late 18th centuryPartitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth;Poland andLithuania achieved independence as separate nations afterWorld War I. The development of nationalism through theLithuanian National Revival was a crucial factor that led to the separation of the modern Lithuanian state from Poland; similar movements took hold inUkraine and later inBelarus (the territories of both modern countries had formerly been part of the Commonwealth, but did not achieve independence until after the late 20th-centurycollapse of the Soviet Union).^[19] Lithuanian nationalism was a reaction to both theRussification in theRussian partition, and to the threat of furtherPolonization due to the pressure of Polish culture.^[19] The Lithuanian nationalist desire to be separate from Poland was exemplified for example in the adoption of theCzech alphabet over thePolish one for theLithuanian alphabet.^[19] The old cultural identities lost the fight to the more attractive ethnic, religious and linguistic-based ones.^[23] Following theabolition of serfdom in the Russian Empire in 1861,social mobility increased, and Lithuanian intellectuals arose from the ranks of the rural populace; language became associated with identity in Lithuania, as elsewhere across Europe.^[24]

The dual identity maintained by many leading figures of Polish-Lithuanian history, thegente Lithuanus, natione Polonus attitude still popular in the early 19th century, was increasingly less feasible as the century pressed ahead.^[23] The leaders of the unsuccessfulJanuary Uprising of 1863–1865 invoked the former commonalities, appealing to "Brother Ruthenians and Lithuanians" and to "Brothers of the Poles of the Mosaic Persuasion". The peasants in the region were largely unmoved since they had never shared the constructed national identity of the elites.^[25] While some non-noble inhabitants saw no contradiction in describing themselves as "a Pole, and a Lithuanian as well",^[19] dual identity was not widely considered as a matter of course. From this point of view, the conduct ofNapoleon in Lithuania is noteworthy. On 1 July 1812, Napoleon formed theLithuanian Provisional Governing Commission. The provisional government of Lithuania had no connections to Poland. Napoleon also refused to attach the military units consisting of Lithuanians to the Polish ones.^[26] On July 14, 1812, the Lithuanian Provisional Governing Commission formally submitted to the General Council of the Confederation of the Kingdom of Poland.^{[citation needed]}

Krajowcy, a group of individuals who tried to maintain their dual identity, emerged in the early years of 20th century in an effort to recreate a federalist Grand Duchy of Lithuania in close association with Poland.^[27] Their political program, as well as Piłsudski's idea of a Polish-led federation re-creating the Commonwealth (Międzymorze), became a failure.^[28][29] An analogy can be drawn here with regards to the split betweenFinnish andSwedish culture (seeFinnish Declaration of Independence).^[30]

Lithuanian noblemanMečislovas Davainis-Silvestraitis published newspapersLitwa (Lithuania, 1908–1914) andLud (People, 1912–1914) in Vilnius with the objective of returning of the nobility into the Lithuanian nation. The main point of returning was to make Lithuanian their family and everyday language. An active figure in the 1863 rebellion, writer and publicistMikalojus Akelaitis wrote:

We should lift up the Lithuanian language, wrest away from scorn that language which has the Sanskrit greatness, the Latin force, the Greek refinement, and the Italian melodiousness.^[31]

Simonas Daukantas (1793 – 1864), who wrote the voluminous history of Lithuania in LithuanianDarbai senųjų lietuvių ir žemaičių (Deeds of the Ancient Lithuanians and Samogitians), and identified the language as the determining factor of nationality was rather critical regarding the Polish–Lithuanian union and considered it to be the cause of the Lithuanian state declining.The gulf between those who chose to use Polish and those who chose to use Lithuanian was growing, and both groups began to see the very history of the Commonwealth in a different light.^[30] Events such as thePolish-Lithuanian War, the1919 Polish coup d'état attempt in Lithuania, and the conflict overVilnius Region led to major tensions in theinterwarPolish-Lithuanian relations.

It was a time of choosing citizenship based on person's values and language.^{[citation needed]} The most iconic case is the family of Narutowicz (Narutavičius) –Stanislovas Narutavičius became one of the twentysignatories of the Act of Independence of Lithuania, while his brotherGabriel Narutowicz became the first president of Poland. A prominent Lithuanian zoologist and biologist, and one of the founders ofVytautas Magnus UniversityTadas Ivanauskas chose to be a Lithuanian, while his other two brothers – Jerzy and Stanisław became Polish and Vacłaŭ – Belarusian.

Tomas Venclova notes that the meaning of the terms: "a Lithuanian" and "a Pole" changed over the centuries.^[32]

Polish-speaking Lithuanians often found it outrageous to be called 'Poles'. <...> As one Lithuanian 'Pole', Michal Juckniewicz, angrily told Lithuanian nationalists: "Jagiełło,Chodkiewicz,Mickiewicz,Piłsudski and I – these are Lithuanians [using the wordLitwini, the Polish word for Lithuanians] – and you; you areLietuvisy [using a polonised form of the Lithuanian word for 'Lithuanians']^[30]

Józef Piłsudski, an important interwar Polish politician, significantly responsible for Poland's regained independence in theaftermath of World War I, planner of the1919 Polish coup d'état attempt in Lithuania^[33] and orchestrator of theŻeligowski's Mutiny that brought the disputedVilnius Region into Poland,^[34] often drew attention to his Lithuanian ancestry, and briefly pursued there-creation of the old Commonwealth.^[35][36] In light of the other great plan for post-World War I order, theBolshevik intention to spread thecommunist revolution through theRed Army, his goal of re-constituting the Commonwealth "could only be achieved by war."^[37] Poland was not alone in its newfound opportunities and troubles. With the collapse of Russian andGerman occupying authorities, virtually all of the newly independent neighbours began fighting over borders:Romaniafought with Hungary overTransylvania,Yugoslavia with Italy overRijeka,Poland withCzechoslovakia overCieszyn Silesia,with Germany overPoznań,with Ukraine overEastern Galicia,with Lithuania overVilnius Region. Spreading Communist influences resulted inCommunist revolutions inMunich,Berlin,Budapest andPrešov, and finally, in thePolish-Soviet War. Speaking of that period,Winston Churchill commented: "The war of giants has ended, the wars of the pygmies began."^[38] Eventually, the bad blood created but those conflicts, and the staunch opposition by (primarily) Polish and Lithuanian nationalists towards the federation idea, and finally thePeace of Riga, in which Poland abandoned the Belarusian and Ukrainian independence cause, would doom the idea of theMiędzymorze federation.^[39][40][41] The failure to create a strong counterbalance to Germany and Soviet Union, such as Międzymorze, which Piłsudski saw as a counterweight to Russian and Germanimperialism, according to some historians, doomed those countries totheir eventual fate as victims ofWorld War II.^{[42][43][44][45]}

The Nobel Prize-winning poetCzesław Miłosz often wrote of his dual Polish and Lithuanian identities.^[46]Anatol Lieven lists Miłosz among "great Polish figures", at the same time noting he is referred to as "one of the last citizens of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania", and that his use of the word "Lithuanian" was "very different from the mono-ethnic vision of many Lithuanian nationalists".^[47] Miłosz himself compared the situation of Polish Lithuanians in the 19th century to that of educated Scots such asWalter Scott, whose works, while written in English rather than Gaelic, were centered on Scots characters and traditions.^[48] Anatol Lieven makes a counterpoint by describing Scottish aspirations to independence as essentially crushed at the 1746Battle of Culloden, which in his view made Scott's path less difficult, and sees pre-1939 Polish-Lithuanian culture as a combination of romantic idealization of medieval Lithuania and contempt for modern Lithuanians.^[48] Similarly, he states: "For educated Poles before the Second World War, Lithuania was not a nation but an assemblage of peasants speaking a peculiar dialect", an attitude that further served to alienate the new Lithuanianintelligentsia.^[48]Czesław Miłosz wrote in his letter to Lithuanian poetTomas Venclova, his long-time friend and associate during exile: "There were some attacks against me in the Lithuanian émigré press because, even though I am a relative ofOscar Miłosz [a Lithuanian poet and diplomat], I am a Pole, not a Lithuanian."^[49] Despite this, radical Polish nationalists planned to protest Miłosz's funeral, claiming (among other reasons) that he was "not Polish enough", though the protest ultimately was not staged.^[50][51]

The use of the expressions "Polish-Lithuanian," "Polonized Lithuanian," and "Pole of Lithuanian descent" persists in recent biographical descriptions of theRadziwiłł family^[52] and in those of several notable 19th and 20th-century figures such asEmilia Plater,Józef Piłsudski,Adam Mickiewicz,Czesław Miłosz, andGabriel Narutowicz, among others.^{[53][54][55][56]} At the same time, other sources simply use the word "Polish",^{[57][58][59][60]} just as the word "Poland" is sometimes used to refer to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth itself.^[3] The usage of the term "Polish" transcends but does not replace the word "Lithuanian", as it was similar to the usage of the term "British" to refer to theBritish Commonwealth, comprising theEnglish,Scottish andWelsh parts; however as a different term was not used in the English language, the result can be confusing at times.^[3] An analogy has also been drawn between the use of Polish-Lithuanian and that ofAnglo-Irish as adjectives.^[17] Crucially, the pre-nationalistic usage of "Polish-Lithuanian" refers to (shared)culture, whereas the more modern, nationalistic usage of "Polish" and "Lithuanian" refers toethnicity.^[1]

Lithuania and Poland continue to dispute the origins of some cultural icons with roots in both cultures who are described in their national discourses as Polish-Lithuanian, as simply Polish, or as simply Lithuanian. The poetAdam Mickiewicz is an exemplar of the controversy.^[61][62]

Today's Republic of Poland considers itself a successor to the Commonwealth,^[63] and stresses the common history of both nations,^[64] whereas the Republic of Lithuania, re-established at the end ofWorld War I, saw the participation of the Lithuanian state in the old Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth mostly in a negative light and idealized the pre-Commonwealth Grand Duchy^[30][65] although this attitude has been changing recently.^[66] Modern Polish-Lithuanian relations have improved, but their respective views of history can still differ.^[67]

• Names of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
• Lithuanian nationalism
• Polish nationalism
• Belarusian nationalism
• Rzeczpospolita
• Other unifying national identities:Yugoslavs,Soviet people,British people,All-Russian nation

• Davies, Norman (2005).God's Playground. Vol. 2: 1795 to the present.Columbia University Press.ISBN 978-0-231-12819-3.
• Karin Friedrich; Barbara M. Pendzich (2009).Citizenship and identity in a multinational commonwealth: Poland-Lithuania in context, 1550-1772. BRILL.ISBN 978-90-04-16983-8.
• Genzelis, Bronius (2007).The restitution of Lithuania's statehood.ISBN 978-9955-415-66-4.
• Gomułka, Stanisław;Polonsky, Antony (1991).Polish Paradoxes.Routledge.ISBN 978-0-415-07146-8.
• Scales, Len; Zimmer, Oliver (2005).Power and the nation in European history.Cambridge University Press.ISBN 978-0-521-84580-9.
• Stone, Daniel (2001).The Polish-Lithuanian state, 1386–1795.University of Washington Press.ISBN 978-0-295-98093-5.
• Sužiedėlis, Saulius (Fall 1981)."Language and Social Class in Southwestern Lithuania before 1864".Lituanus.27 (3). Archived fromthe original on 6 September 2008. Retrieved25 March 2011.
• Prizel, Ilya (1998).National Identity and Foreign Policy: Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine.Cambridge University Press.ISBN 978-0-521-57697-0.

• Wandycz, Piotr S. (1974).The Lands of Partitioned Poland, 1795–1918.University of Washington Press.ISBN 978-0-295-95358-8.
• Wandycz, Piotr S. (1980).The United States and Poland.Harvard University Press.ISBN 978-0-674-92685-1.
• Wandycz, Piotr S. (2001).The Price of Freedom: a History of East Central Europe from the Middle Ages to the Present (2nd ed.).Routledge.ISBN 978-0-415-25491-5.

• Mastianica, Olga (2016).Bajorija lietuvių tautiniame projekte: (XIX a. pabaiga - XX a. pradžia) [Nobility in the Lithuanian national project: (late 19th century - early 20th century)] (in Lithuanian). Vilnius:Lietuvos istorijos institutas.ISBN 978-609-8183-13-9.

• Mościcki, Henryk (1917).Generał Jasiński i powstanie kościuszkowskie (in Polish). Warsaw:Gebethner i Wolff [pl].

• Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
• Demographic history of Lithuania
• National identities
• Polish nationalism (1795–1918)
• Politics of the Second Polish Republic
• Demographic history of Poland
• Lithuania–Poland relations

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