The Jagiellonians

Jogaila did what was good for his dynasty and himself personally, that's it. As an aristocrate he couldn't get a better deal.

Back then there was no concept of nations and nation-states, which only evolved a couple of centuries later. An aristrocrate inherited lands and a relatively week tie to his patron. No "nation" in the power equation. They could and did switch sides a lot, especially if that meant extra subordinates and a higher aristocracy rank.

Sadly, state-sponsored school textbooks always kind of skip this simple fact.

As far as I can tell, both nations see the union as "their" one. Poland, as you say, grew to be more dominant culturally and politically, Lithuania brought in more territory.

The Commonwealth eventually collapsed, which certainly in Poland is seen as the greatest disaster of the country's history. I'd imagine similarly in Lithuania; it brought cruel foreign rule to all of its former territories. The state collapsed because it was more and more dysfunctional, perhaps due to its inhomogeneity, so eg in Poland the union is sometimes seen as short term good but long term bad. But the mainstream view remains "look how big Poland was. Yes and that other bit too".

It probably doesn't help that after the post-war border rejig, Lithuania is left as a territorially small country, with much of its heartland chopped off, and initially at least with a huge Polish minority wishing that the territory they live in was in fact awarded to Poland. Vilnius to this day is, i believe, something like 10% Polish population. There's countless trips from Poland admiring "our" city full of "Polish history".

So basically Poland and Lithuania built together an empire that collapsed badly, leaving considerable animosity between the nations, which i guess sours the memory of the empire, and leaves people wondering what the past would have looked like if not for the joint venture.

The reality is that, together or apart, it still lie between Russia and Germany, so a hard place to be, but it's always nice to have a bogeyman to blame

I mean I’m no historian, but my impression here in Europe is that every nation has its heroes. And that those same heroes are often villains in the histories of neighboring national mythologies.

I know this isn’t some big insight. But from my Polish perspective I think it’s all much more recent than we would like to think. We learn all of this stuff on the basis of a highly politicized curriculum. For instance most of the current Polish national stories/facts date back only to 19th century literature, which was highly focused on restoring the Polish national myth.

Our minds can’t wrap their way around time very well. So, we end up believing that someone from the 19th century somehow knew more than we do about the 17th century. Fact is, someone from the end of the 18th century probably could already have distorted knowledge about the beginning of the 18th century.

So I think shitty nationalist arguments over Jagiełło’s rule have more to do with what modern Poles and modern Lithuanians think, than with what was really going on in that historical period.

Anyways I’m surprised Jaggielonians were this important historically later. I’m a bit suspicious about modern motivations around supporting myths that they’re worth cherishing. Are there ancestors who have an interest in making themselves “royal” for the purposes of their ego?

What’s more - why is this even on Hacker News? Isn’t this, like completely off topic?

edit: I don’t want to be harsh - the subject does sound very interesting, and worth investigating. Oxford historians are probably more than very well aware of everything I said above.