We are happy to share news of the publication of ‘Multicultural Commonwealth: Poland-Lithuania and Its Afterlives’ (University of Pittsburgh Press), edited by Prof Stanley Bill and Prof Dr Simon Lewis, and with contributions by Prof Bill and Dr Olenka Pevny.

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795) was once the largest country in Europe — a multicultural republic that was home to Belarusians, Germans, Jews, Lithuanians, Poles, Ruthenians, Tatars, Ukrainians, and other ethnic and religious groups.

Although long since dissolved, the Commonwealth remains a rich resource for mythmaking in its descendant modern-day states, but also a source of contention between those with different understandings of its history.

Multicultural Commonwealth brings together the expertise of world-renowned scholars in a range of disciplines to present perspectives on both the Commonwealth’s historical diversity and the memory of this diversity. With cutting-edge research on the intermeshed histories and memories of different ethnic and religious groups of the Commonwealth, this volume asks how various contemporary conceptions of multiculturalism can be applied to the region through a critical lens that also seeks to understand the past on its own terms.

For more, see: https://upittpress.org/books/9780822948032/