Polish Golden Age

Common card · No. 360195

The Polish Golden Age (Polish: Złoty Wiek Polski [ˈzwɔ.tɘ ˈvjɛk ˈpɔl.ski] ) was the Renaissance period in the Kingdom of Poland and subsequently in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which started in the late 15th century. Historians argue that the Polish Golden Age ended by the mid-17th century, when Poland was ravaged by the Khmelnytsky Uprising (1648–57) and by the Swedish and Russian invasion. During its Golden Age, the Commonwealth became one of the largest kingdoms of Europe and at its peak stretched from modern-day Estonia in the north to Moldavia in the south and from Moscow in the east to Brandenburg in the west. In the 16th century the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth grew to 1 million km2, with a population of 11 million. It prospered from its enormous grain, wood, salt, and cloth trade with Western Europe via the Baltic Sea ports of Danzig (Gdańsk), Elbing (Elbląg), Riga, Memel (Klaipėda), and Königsberg (Kaliningrad). The Commonwealth's major cities also included Poznań, Kraków...

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