Description
In 2019 we celebrate the 450th anniversary of the Union
of Lublin. The Union Sejm in Lublin, which sat from
January to August 1569, took the decisions to form
Commonwealth of Two Peoples (Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth) and shaped the geopolitical structure
of Central-Eastern Europe for a whole epoch to come.
This outcome was the fruit of several important initiatives
passed at the state level. First and foremost, on 1 July 1569
the Polish-Lithuanian union was established, creating
a new state - the Commonwealth of Two Peoples -
without abolishing the existing Crown of the Kingdom
of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The newly
established structure was a federation with a common
elective monarch, common Sejm and common foreign
policy. Both constituent parts, however, retained their
own territories, offices, treasuries, official languages
and judiciaries. Apart from the constituting entities,
the new state included other areas with a certain degree
of autonomy. The royal charters of 26 May and 6 June
1569 established the framework for the functioning
of the Volhynia Province and the Duchy of Kiev, both
detached from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and
annexed to (“returned to” as the official nomenclature
of the epoch would have it) to the Polish Crown. Both
territories were granted identical rights to maintain
separate judicial systems and their own official language
(Ruthenian), both were guaranteed the privileged
status of the Orthodox Church and an exemption from
the reclamation of land belonging to the royal domain.
This sowed a seed for the Commonwealth of three, not
only two, nations, comprising the Poles, Lithuanians and
Ruthenians. Another territory which was annexed to
the Polish Crown while allowed to retain many regional
particularities was Royal Prussia. The relevant royal
decree was issued on 16 March 1569. Subregions of this
province were to participate in the common Sejm of
the Commonwealth but Prussia retained its autonomous
judiciary system, a separate system of provincial legislature
bodies (sejmiks) allowing in town representatives as
members and German as an official language used in parallel
to Polish. Moreover, the act of Sejm on the Livonia Province
regulated the separate status of this territory, subjugating it
to the Polish Crown and to Lithuania, which later on paved
the way for specific solutions establishing there a similar kind
of autonomy as the one enjoyed by Prussia.
King Sigismund-Augustus had a significant impact on
the achievements of the Sejm in Lublin but the decisions
concerning the union resulted primarily from the agreement
reached between partners with diverse interests and
worldviews. Polish nobility sought closer integration,
Lithuanian nobility strived for broader independence, as
Ruthenian and Prussian representatives protected their
regional interests. However, they managed to negotiate
compromise solutions which lay foundations for
a functioning of an important state stabilizing
the situation in Central-Eastern Europe. Its existence
halted the expansion of the Grand Duchy of Moscow
for another 200 years and incorporated a large area in
this part of Europe into a state with a citizen and
parliamentary culture, drawing its legitimacy from
the idea of freedoms.
Henryk Litwin
Obverse
The obverse of the coin features the image of King
Sigismund Augustus as depicted by Jan Matejko.
Reverse
The reverse of the coin features the coat-of-arms of King
Sigismund-Augustus, a quote from the documents of
the Union Sejm: “The free to the free, the equal to
equals” and a fragment of the painting ”The Union of
Lublin” by Marcello Bacciarelli.
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