Skip to main content
Home

User menu logged out

  • Subscribe
  • Sign in

History Today September 2025

Subscription
Offers

Give a Gift

Main menu

  • Home
  • The Magazine
  • Subscribe
  • Buy the Current Issue
  • Explore the Digital Archive
  • Institutions
  • Reviews
  • Sign in
Home

Mini header menu

  • Search
  • Magazine
  • Latest
  • Subscribe

Subscribe

Feature

The End of a Nation

Wedged between Russia, Prussia and Austria, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth faced extinction in the 18th century.

Richard Butterwick | Published in History Today Volume 71 Issue 6 June 2021

To continue reading this article you need to purchase a subscription, available from only £5.

Start my trial subscription now

If you have already purchased access, or are a print & archive subscriber, please ensure you are logged in.

Please email digital@historytoday.com if you have any problems.

PolandCatherine the Great

Related Articles

grigory_potemkin.jpg
Prince Potemkin and the Benthams
Peter_I_by_Kneller.jpg
Poland-Lithuania, Russia and Peter the Great

Popular articles

Passers-by looking at a modern sculpture in the window of a Wimpy Bar in London, c.1961. Photograph by John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins. © Estate of John Hopkins.
Wimpy vs McDonald’s: The Battle of the Burgers
Scene showing communion (left) and excommunication (right) from the Decretales of Giovanni d’Andrea, 13th century. Luisa Ricciarini/Bridgeman Images.
Get Out: Excommunicated in Medieval England

Recently published

Æthelstan gives away his sister, St Editha to Sigtrid, king of Northbria, watercolour byThomas Mattews Rooke after a stained glass window by Ford Madox Brown, 1909. Birmingham Museums Trust/Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. Public Domain.
‘The First King of England’ by David Woodman review
 Zoroaster, 19th-century Indian illustration. Heritage Images/TopFoto.
Zoroastrians in the Great Game
Scene showing communion (left) and excommunication (right) from the Decretales of Giovanni d’Andrea, 13th century. Luisa Ricciarini/Bridgeman Images.
Get Out: Excommunicated in Medieval England

Most read

  1. Wimpy vs McDonald’s: The Battle of the Burgers
  2. Get Out: Excommunicated in Medieval England
  3. The Lin Biao Incident
  4. ‘Zbig’ by Edward Luce and ‘Henry Kissinger’ by Jérémie Gallon review
  5. ‘The First King of England’ by David Woodman review
X
Get Miscellanies, our free weekly long read, in your inbox every week

Footer menu

  • About
  • Masthead
  • Contact
  • Jobs
  • Advertising
  • RSS feeds
  • Submit an Article
  • Back Issues
  • Binders
  • Cookie policy
  • Awards
  • Students
  • Privacy policy
  • Terms of Use
  • X
  • Instagram
  • Bluesky
  • Facebook

© Copyright 2025 History Today Ltd. Company no. 1556332.