#btw in literal transtlation from Polish it would be “Republic of Both Nations”

[wandixx]

1765

Thank you so much for asking!

It was an interesting time. Not necessarily this year in particular but a few following decades for sure. Not a good time but interesting. Like in this Chinese curse.

However, 1765 was not just your ordinary year in this dying country either. Just a year before the Polish and Lithuanian aristocracy (and Ukrainian I guess, even though the country at the time was called the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the territory of now Ukraine was included and aristocrats living there also had the right to vote) elected the new king (yeah, since 1573 this country had elective kings, it was a bit of a mess tbh). His name was Stanisław August Poniatowski and for once he was not a foreigner (it's like 5 foreign/6 local or 7/4 ratio depending on how to count Władysław IV Waza (Vasaätten in Swedish) and his brother Jan Kazimierz who were from foreign dynasty but from what I know were actually raised in Warsaw. Add one to local if we count Anna Jagielonka but she wasn't actually ruling I think)(Jeez, I get sidetracked a lot, am I not?). Anyway, long live the king! At least this one tried to do something about all of the shit that was going on! He failed miserably, yeah, but at least he tried. It's much more than can be said about at least a few of his predecessors.

Back to the 1765 because I'm spoiling, back then it was believed there were some chances of healing. New King just opened a new school in Warsaw but it was not your ordinary Sunday school. Szkoła Rycerska (Knightly School I guess) was a special school for aristocratic youth in the spirit of Enlightenment and raised a bunch of much-needed wise patriots instead of drunk short-sighted idiots who were governing back then. Kinda late for the party with Enlightenment, I know but anyway, it was really needed back then. Unfortunately, they were still deep in this whole "aristocracy is a pupil of an eye of the country" mindset (though this aristocracy was a bit different than what it means in the West, we have separate word for it but aristoracy is best translation I could get, because you could be dirt poor and aristocrat, just born into the right family and supposedly they were all equal. supposedly. They made up about 10% of the population though. There were three or four "classes" of them, based on the amount of money they had, I can talk about it more if someone is interested), so only blue-blooded deserved to go there. But, you know it was a step in the right direction and between the fact that the king had very little influence on anything, lots of conservatives in parliament, fucking liberum veto (this shit deserves its own, separate rant, the stupidest idea in the history of Polish law and I have a vague memory of chimney tax being a thing), and the way foreign powers were messing up, it probably was almost as good as he could get. As the name suggests, its main focus was the military and civil servant type of service. Each year supposedly 200 boys from poorer (still aristocratic though) families got stipends from the state budget to attend it. During almost 30 years of working, it was finished by 950 people. IDK what happened with these 200 stipends/year. Probably didn't work because this country was quite literally dying, burning, okay, maybe I'm overexaggerating but t'was bad.

Anyway, like any school, Szkoła Rycerska had its share of famous graduates. The most famous one definitely is Tadeusz Kościuszko. Idk if Americans tried to translate his name in any way, so here you go, certified Polish spelling (he himself translated his first name as Thaddeus). Anyway, yeah, he is The Guy who fortified Philadelphia and a bunch of other places like Saratoga, West Point, etc. during the American Revolution (I'm not all that knowledgeable when it comes to his success in this war tbh). He also used money he got from Congress as a payment/thank-you gift to free as many black slaves as he could, while having enough to give each of them a decent start in free life (education and stuff like that). His last will too was like that but it was never executed ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Unfortunately, he wasn't as successful in Poland.

Btw, the highest mountain in Australia is named after him. No, to my knowledge he had never been in Australia.

Other graduates of Szkoła Rycerska also did some amazing things but their more of the local heroes, so tell me if you're interested in me telling you more about them.

Yo, I just made quite a long post about the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth near the end of the 18th century and hadn't outright mentioned that it disappeared as a country in 1795. Not in a "got separated into two countries like Czechoslovakia in 1990's" but in a "not a sign on a map it ever existed"

That's an achievement.

I can and will elaborate on anything that spiked your interest, I hope it's coherent enough to be readable

I was well into answering this when my god damn ancient laptop decided to freeze and delete it all, I swear just getting angry with this thing is shortening my life more than stress of finishing high school ever could