ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the problems of trying to set geographic boundaries by exploring the concept of 'Polish'. It establishes how diverse and dynamic the territories and people were during this period. To describe a multinational, multi-ethnic state as 'Polish' is perhaps controversial, if the term is used in modern sense of referring to ethnicity. The chapter describes the shift in balance of power towards the nobility and establishes their unique position, politically and economically, compared to the more absolutist states of Western Europe. The combined Polish-Lithuanian state, in which Poland had been politically and culturally dominant, was transformed into the formidable and dynamic Rzeczpospolita, which endured until Poland was erased from the map of Europe by the partitions of 1772, 1793 and 1795. In times when land was in super abundant supply and people alone had political value, there was no point what so ever in defining the territory of state or of staking out its boundaries with a tape-measure.
