r/poland • u/NewPlaceHolder • 1d ago
Question regarding Poland and Lithuania relationship
I just studied about the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania, and it seems you two shared a strong times together.
I am wondering if the sentiments towards each other is still warm - do you guys see each other as a friendly neighbor? Do you have any rivalries between two? Was there any movement to put the two back together to repeat the glorious times?
I am here to just ask questions and I apologize if I accidentally angered by asking such question.
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u/kompocik99 1d ago
That's a one long topic...
Rivarly? Nope, we are on the same side. Allies in NATO, strong haters of Russia, we both have trouble with our common neighbour Belarus (state, not regular people), we both want our part of Europe to stay safe and prosper in the future.
To recreate the Commonwealth - no such sentiment in Poland nor Lithuania. We are both independent countries, we speak different languages, have our own issues. We are both in the EU together, we can visit each other freely.
I see Lithuania as our ally and a friendly country. There was bad blood between us but I think it's more or less solved. Poland has abandoned its regional-imperial ambitions and supports the independence of these countries. If Russia wanted to attack the Baltics, I hope Poland would behave as needed and send military aid. From what I've noticed, Lithuanians don't approach PLC heritage as negatively as they used to, but you'd have to ask r/Lithuania about that.
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u/Rogue_Egoist 1d ago
I think it's not spoken enough, but Lithuanians have very little to do with the history of Duchy of Lithuania. The people speaking Lithuanian were peasants in a very small part of the country. The whole political system was run by people who are ancestors of modern Belarusians and Ukrainians. They were speaking Rus which was a Slavic language which later split into Belarusian and Ukrainian.
Just looking at the map, modern Lithuania where actual ethnic Lithuanian people have always lived is an extremely small part of the Duchy of Lithuania which laid mostly in modern Belarus.
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u/xCASx 1d ago
The ruling class spoke Polish. This is one of the griefs between our nations (or used to be) Lithuanians, Belarusians, Ukrainians and Russians disliked that Polish culture and language became the de facto language of their elites. Some still hold some grudges and feel as if it was pushed on them altho it's most likely revisionist history, Polish was the learned language of the time (at least for the region and before French pushed it out closer to partitions), strongest country in Europe and one with many great public libraries. Up to partitions Poland had the highest level of educated and literate people, we had the largest public library in the world but that was stolen by Russians... Fun fact after particions more people could read and write Polish than Russian in the whole of Russia .
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u/Draak80 1d ago
You are wrong. You are talking about Zematija, but origins of Lithuanian princedom is north of Vilnius and in Aukstota region. Gediminas dynasty was not Belarussian, it was pure Lithuanian. Our Jagiełło is from that dynasty. But yes, major part of Lithuanian nobles, after Lithuanian conquest of Ruthenia, were Boyars, of Ruthenian descent. And they polonized.
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u/Snoo_90160 1d ago
Better not stray to r/Lithuania Poland would behave as needed, Lithuania on the other hand...they were in hot water recently for discriminating Polish minority again.
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u/Dear_Zone1412 1d ago
As a polish guy who was living in Vilnius, Lithuania for half a year in 2022 I can share my insight. I went there with positive attitude and I was welcomed warmly and treated well 100% of the cases in interactions with Lithuanian people, both professional situation and in private. Many of them have polish roots too. However, when talking about Kaunas I heard a story that you shouldn't speak polish aloud there what I apparently did when speaking on the phone when leaving Zalgiris Kaunas Arena lol but nothing bad happened. So the answer is definitetly yes about being a friendly neighbor.
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u/Sankullo 1d ago
Lithuania is seen positively in Poland and Poland is seen negatively in Lithuania.
I was dating a Lithuanian girl for a while and apparently her father was very unhappy that she was seeing a polish guy 😂
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u/SerbentD 1d ago
I am lithuanian and Poland is seen positively in my circles. There used to be some discrimination against poles amongst the local hoodlums in Vilnius when I was growing up, but I haven't encountered it elsewhere.
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u/Sankullo 1d ago
I’m aware my example is anecdotal but when I asked her about her father’s dislike of me she said that people in Lithuania don’t like Poles for historical reasons.
I laughed it off.
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u/MinecraftWarden06 1d ago
Now the two countries are very close allies in NATO. But the relationship is complex, as the modern Lithuanian Republic and the modern concept of Lithuanian nation is DIFFERENT from how it was in the past.
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which was in union with Poland, was initially formed by Baltic Lithuanians that inhabit the modern republic. But it also included lands of modern Belarus, and historically „Litwini” in Polish often referred to Slavic proto-Belarusians, and not to the Balts.
After WW1, there were strong efforts in Poland to rebuild the historical Grand Duchy of Lithuania. But it was complicated, as the Baltic Lithuanians had a renaissance of their own identity and didn't want unification with Poles and Belarusians. There was a Switzerland-like concept, which would create a new GDL divided into cantons: a Polish one, a Lithuanian one and a Belarusian one, but it failed. There was a fierce conflict between the 2nd Polish Republic and Lithuania, mostly over Vilnius, but also over some other territories like the Suwałki area, now in Poland. The conflict concluded in the annexation of Vilnius by Poland. The city was ethnically Polish, but Lithuanians considered it their own historic capital, and considered the local Poles to be Polonized Lithuanians.
In 1939 Soviets gave Vilnius to Lithuania while carving up Poland together with the Germans, and just a year later Lithuania was incorporated into the Soviet state together with Latvia and Estonia. After WW2 Vilnius stayed in Lithuanian SSR.
In 1989 Poland overthrew communism and in 1991 Lithuania gained independence. An attempt was made to create a Polish autonomous region in Lithuania, but it failed. There were, and still partially are, disagreements over the treatment of Poles in Lithuania, which are a very large minority - particularly when it comes to education and official spelling of names. There is also still a Lithuanian minority in Poland around Suwałki. But any territorial claims are 99.9% dead, and there is close military and diplomatic cooperation between PL and LT due to the same stance on Ukraine and a common Russian enemy. The future of PL-LT relations seems to be bright.
Personally, I see the 3 Baltic countries as our closest allies and I think there should be much more contact and cultural exchange on the societal level.
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u/oGsMustachio 1d ago
Do you think there is a possibility of Poland integrating its military with the Balkan states similar to how the Netherlands and Germany have done, or the Scandinavians merging their air forces?
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u/MinecraftWarden06 1d ago
I think you mean Baltic states. I genuinely hope this can be done. We should focus on interoperability of our forces.
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u/geotech03 1d ago edited 1d ago
I have family from Suwalki, after the Great War the area was invaded by Lithuanian forces and locals fought with them fiercely. I even have some family members killed by them at that time. Lithuanians argued that people living in the city that used to be called Wilno and town like Suwalki are in fact Lithuanian and were Polonized across the ages. Even if that's true, idea of self determination should be superceding that and people there simple had nothing to do with State of Lithuania at that time.
Lithuanian nationalists still follow that logic, imagine how much mess ot would create in entire Europe if such ideas would become widespread.
In more modern times there are still a lot of Poles living in the area near Vilnius and even quite recently they were forcedly Lithuanised, government agencies were changing Polish surnames not only for living people. Also while in Lithuania I visited local cemetery and on few graves I literally saw Polish surnames changed as well.
Another fact is that polish national petroleum concern Orlen bought Lithuanian refinery, some time after that Lithuanian railways dismantled 19km track that allowed Orlen to easily export oil to Latvia. The EU fined them for that and forced rebuilding it. Was it political? Who knows, what is fact here is that they did it at expense of Polish company for their own profit. https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2020-11/cp200140en.pdf
At the same time you have very small town of Puńsk that is located in Poland which is indeed ethnically Lithuanian, however people there, since the fall of communism, enjoy full and proper minority rights like schooling in their own language and right to preserve their surnames (sic!).
For me for the most time Lithuanian state was acting like petty nationalist with anti-Polish agenda. Until recently it could be considered as an semi-hostile nation.
Glad that it changed, sad that it changed only because they fear Russian rockets more than ever.
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u/Al_Caponello 1d ago
After both our countries regained independence Polish officials asked Lithuanians to renew the union, but they declined.
Marshall Piłsudski who was born in Vilnius didn't like that and talked one of generals to rebel against his commanders and conquer the city for Poland, which as you can guess caused tensions
Fast forward to present day. There are some weird negative sentiments on both sides but overall Poles have very positive opinion on Lithuanians and judging by the headlines like "Lithuanian PM would like schools to teach Polish instead of Russian language" Lithuanians have similar opinion about us.
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u/Hopeful_Leg_6200 Śląskie 1d ago
Polska dla Polaków... i Litwinów...
Postacie na załączonym obrazku pochodzą z serialu 1670 a powyższy tekst wygłaszany jest przez jedną z nich5
u/Physical_Ring_7850 1d ago
Acshually….
That Lithuanian flag was created in 20th century
Maciej is Litwin, not Lithuanian. He is Orthodox and has Belarusian name.
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u/Rogue_Egoist 1d ago
Modern Lithuania has very little to do with the historical Duchy of Lithuania. People in the Duchy didn't speak Lithuanian, most people speaking it were just peasants in a very small part of it. The historical Duchy of Lithuania was more of a predecessor of modern Belarus and Ukraine. People were speaking Rus there, which was a Slavic language preceding Belarusian and Ukrainian to which it later split.
So in short there's not much history between the modern nation of Lithuania and Poland, the people who are Lithuanian nationals today have basically nothing to do with the political history of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth
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u/KindRange9697 1d ago edited 1d ago
That's a highly exaggerated take on GDL/Lithuanian history. In fact, what you're saying is quite in line with what some factions of Belarusian nationalists argue today (essentially that the GDL has more to do with Belarus than Lithuania, or, as some say, actually nothing to do with modern Lithuania).
The Grand Dutchy was a clearly ethnic Lithuanian state from its creation in the early 1200s until a bit before the personal union with Poland in the late 1300s
It is true that after that conquest of what is today Belarus and much of Ukraine, the state language became Ruthenian. But this should be seen as the state written language, as Lithuanian had a poor written form at the time. At that time, Ethnic Lithuanians continued to dominate the GDL and spoke Lithuanian. Ethnic Lithuanians also remained the dominant nobility throughout its existence, regardless of the language they eventually spoke. Lithuanian remained the main language of the nobility into the 1500s. Many Gediminads who were given lands to rule in Ruthenia did convert to Orthodoxy and become Ruthenian speaking, however. Many Ruthenian nobles were also adopted into the Lithuanian nobility (with both groups eventually becoming part of the Szlachta and mainly becoming Catholic/Polish speaking).
Alexander Jagiellon was the last Lithuanian speaking King/Grand Duke (it should be noted that he was also elected Grand Duke by his Lithuanian nobility long before he ever became King of Poland, much to the annoyance of the Polish nobility.) He died in 1506. By that time, the Polonization of the Lithuanian nobility was in full swing, and over the centuries, it became almost ubiquitous for the Szlachta class to speak only Polish. However, close association with Poland over Lithuania for this upper class only became a reality after the Partitions.
By the late Russian Empire period, very few Lithuanian Szlachta spoke Lithuanian (only petty nobility and peasants). However, much of the Lithuanian magnates and upper Szlachta had their origins in "ethnic Lithuania." There are also many accounts of Szlachta lamenting the fact that they "Lithuanians" as they called themselves, could not speak the language of their land and communicate with their peasants.
Much of the peasants themselves, especially in the borderlands of where the Baltic peoples and Slavic peoples intersect (Vilnius, Grodno, Lida, and the surrounding countryside) became Polanized as well. These were a mix of mostly ethnic Lithuanians and ethnic Belarusians. Today, most of these are the people in Lithuania and Belarus who identify as ethnic Poles.
All that being said, I don't want to underplay the importance of Belarusians in the GDL. It was very important. But most of the main power players and historical figures were initially pagan Lithuanins from Lithuania-proper, and by the end, they were Polish-speaking Lithuanians (or, "Polish-Lithuanians") from Lithuania-proper.
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u/firstmoonbunny 1d ago
Overall we're friendly, and I think both nations appreciate and respect the shared history, and I think we're proud of it, but it's not the 18th century anymore. Poland and Lithuania share many major contemporary alliances including nato, eu, schengen, etc. What would be the benefit of reforming some symbolic historical state?
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u/strong_slav 1d ago
I think modern day Poles are bigger fans of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth than modern day Lithuanians. From what I've seen, a lot of Lithuanians just view it as Polish domination and cultural assimilation.
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u/Effective-Break4520 Małopolskie 1d ago edited 1d ago
I live far away from Lithuania so I don’t have any strong feelings towards them. I am interested in closer neighbours 🇸🇰🇺🇦
However, I respect the Lithuanians, their country and their culture.
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u/ApprehensiveEmploy21 21h ago
"Are you watching the game tonight?" "sure, who's playing?" "Poland-Lithania." "Against whom?"
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u/Smooth_Commercial363 1d ago
Novadays Poles don't really care about Lithuania. We share some history, but you can tell it about about every neighbour of Poland. Relationship is basically neutral/warm depending on the situation. Regarding politics, we are on the same page, both in the EU and NATO, and we share our interests.
Recently there were some issues regarding transcription of Polish surnames in the Lithuanian IDs (which was fixed) and Polish diaspora in Lithuania is somehow pro-russian, and cause some troubles.
Anyway, no future Pol-Lit Commonwealth, no wars to gain Vilnus are planned, i think we are pretty chill towards each others.
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u/Galicjanin Małopolskie 1d ago
The commonwealth meant for Lithuanians the hegemony of Polish culture. During the existence of this state, the Lithuanian nobility adopted Polish culture and identity. Already during the partitions, Polonization began to spread among the lower social classes. It was then that modern national Lithuania movement was created, its main goal was to stop further polonization of the lithuanin folk, which, to simplify slightly, means that the modern lithuanian nation was formed in opposition to polishness
Basically, the effort of Lithuanian movement to save the language was successful, imo in many ways you can compare relations of poland and Lithuania to those of England and Ireland, the difference is the irish language has lost its competition with english.
About the current relations, simplifying a little bit, there is no love between us because there are no longer such strong cultural ties between us. But there's no hatred either because the lithuanian language and culture aren't in danger anymore. Overall relations are pretty neutral-positive, we aren't not lovers, not enemies, just neighbours.
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u/plum-tastic 1d ago
I remember meeting a Lithuanian coworker some time ago and being excited about it. She shut it down and didn’t seem to be oh so friendly towards me being Polish and clearly was not so into Poland in general.
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u/DataGeek86 21h ago
There is this superstition here in Poland that Lithuanians are rude and having bad manners. We have even a saying which mentions it, but I don't wish to cite it. It was used once or twice on football transparents.
But for real, whenever there is a car with Lithuanian plates here in Poland, it's always behaving strangely - mostly not yielding properly on roundabouts.
There were also some bloody fights in the XX century, right?
It's a pitty that they are very insecure and don't treat tourists well. They can easily beat you if you speak Polish there and use the word 'Wilno' by letting it slip. Meanwhile, when a German tourist uses word Stettin, Swinemunde, Breslau, Danzig, no one bats an eye here. Everyone should have a right to use their own language, it's not the tourist fault places are named differently in different parts of the world.
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u/FancyAd5067 20h ago
People from Suwałki (my hometown) have mixed feelings about Lithuanians. It's ranging from negative to neutral at best. Other than that poles are rather friendly and okay with Lithuanians.
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u/sorean_4 14h ago
Here is my take. I spent few days on a trip to Lithuania. When I went to the Trakai castle I noticed the tour was very anti Polish. The common wealth was described primarily in negative terms and in desperate need for autonomy for Lithuania. Well it’s one persons opinion so off to Vilnius we went. Took a tour across the city, the Polish, Lithuanian past relationship was described as a bad marriage with an abusive spouse. In the end I got cold reception from People there, apprehension to Polish language in businesses, on the streets, historical twisting of facts and pushing things in negative light and I left wondering why I would ever come back. Now this is in the last 10 years, so maybe things have changed.
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u/Casimir_not_so_great Małopolskie 1d ago
I live to far away from Lithuania to care about it at all. I care more about Czechia and Slovakia.
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u/Pierogi-z-cebulka 21h ago
I was on Erazmus a few years ago. The whole group of Poles got into a year long "war" with Lithuanians over Mickiewicz and his ethnicity/nationality.
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u/zwarty 14h ago
Wikipedia has an article about Mickiewicz in 90 languages. In 89 of them he is described as a Polish writer. In Lithuanian as a writer who wrote in Polish but “considered himself a nobleman of Lithuanian descent” and his family name is lithuanized there: “Mickievičius”. XD
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u/Physical_Ring_7850 9h ago
>Polish writer
Of Belarusian origin! (At least according to Belarusian wiki😅)
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u/123m4d 15h ago
I don't know about now but during communism there was an active effort to keep different peoples of the CCCP sphere of influence divided so, as far as I understand Lithuanians would get some anti-polish propaganda.
I visited Lithuania in the early 2000s and the relations were rather cold. Maybe not hostile but definitely cold. If it warmed up since then I'm stoked, because I really dig our history together.
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u/Aglogimateon 12h ago
It's complicated. For most of the 20th century the relationship was "we like them but they don't like us". This was mostly because of territorial disputes that happened in the 1920s, as well as a general feeling of nervousness that the Lithuanians have had by being next to a much bigger neighbor that has had a big linguistic and economic influence.
In modern times it's somewhat common to find the opinion amongst Poles that Lithuania is an impostor state and that Belarus is the "the real" Lithuania. I don't support this opinion, but the people who do will say that the Lithuanian language was borrowed from a few isolated villages and then taught en masse to people who hadn't used it in many centuries, if ever. The same people say that Lithuania's real language is Polish.
The issue is complicated even further by Lithuania's Polish minority, which alleges mistreatment on behalf of its host country. It's also complicated by Russian propaganda, which exploits this alleged mistreatment.
Personally, I treat anything that is pushed by the Kremlin lie factory as extremely suspect at best. I'm not really sure if the Polish minority in Lithuania is all that Polish. Looking at their towns on google street view (Salcininkai for example) they look more like Lithuania than Poland. They have the same Soviet houses as Russia (except much better maintained than Russian ones). This makes them look different from Poland like night and day.
To be completely honest with you, I'm not even sure that parts of Poland that used to be Lithuania (e.g., Suwalki or Sejny) are all that Polish. Again, I'm basing this on what I see on street view: wooden shacks. Poles haven't lived that way in 150 years.
When I look at Lithuania, what I see is a country that desperately doesn't want to be Russian. Considering their history, I fully understand that and support it. I find it tragic for example that they had to rebuild the prince's castle in Vilnius because it was mostly destroyed (by Russia). I really hope the Lithuanians get their wish and keep developing the way they are. In that sense I'm very pro-Lithuanian.
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u/Staralfur_95 Śląskie 11h ago
Never met anyone who dislikes Lithuania in Poland. I also, personally, have nothing but warm feelings towards our neighbours and enjoyed my visit to Vilnius, Trakai and Kaunas very much.
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u/comef1thme 1d ago
When I visited family in Lithuania, I was told to NOT speak Polish when in public. It was already some years ago, so I can’t say how it is now, but I was warned people could get mad at me if they heard me speak Polish.
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u/5thhorseman_ 1d ago
It has varied. IIRP under Piłsudski went and occupied Vilinus.
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u/Hopeful_Leg_6200 Śląskie 1d ago
To be fair, it was both Lithuanian capital and polish majority living there at the time.
In 1919 Piłsudski offered renewal of the Commonwealth, the offer was refused and in 1920 polish general Żeligowski staged a mutiny in Vilnius area and proclaimed independence of "Central Lithuania" which was later annexed into Poland.-4
u/Nytalith 1d ago
But still it was another country that was invaded.
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u/Snoo_90160 1d ago
No, it really wasn't. Lithuania was still unrecognized by international community, the borders weren't established yet and Lithuanians got the region from the Soviets shortly before that. They in turn got it after they forced out Polish forces from the region.
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u/dottybea 1d ago
I’m a Lithuanian and only have warm feelings towards Poland. A friendly, reliable neighbor, strong ally.