British historian: 18th-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was not a failed state

Richard Butterwick-Pawlikowski, an Oxford historian with a postdoctoral qualification from Łódź, argues in his new book "Światło i płomień. Odrodzenie i zniszczenie Rzeczypospolitej (1733–1795)" that Stanisław-era Poland was not a "failed state". He contends that after 1788 the Commonwealth escaped Russian hegemony and threatened its neighbors' geopolitical interests. In his view, the partitions were not a merciful end to an anarchic state, but a deliberate destruction of a country embarking on reform.

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