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There was no pre 20th century Poland! The pale is the same as the Polish Lithuanian commonwealth (mostly), minus Habsburg Galicia and the Prussian part of Pola

There was no pre 20th century Poland! The pale is the same as the Polish Lithuanian commonwealth (mostly), minus Habsburg Galicia and the Prussian part of Poland. The nobility of the polish Lithuanian commonwealth were mostly polish or German speaking (and thus there is very little lithuanian or Belarusian in Yiddish even though a huge number of Jews lived in the Lithuanian part of the commonwealth)

Tade0 6y ago
Of course there was. The commonwealth was established in 1385, while Poland as a state came into existence effectively in 966, when Mieszko I adopted Christianity.
- mantas 6y ago
  1385 was one ruler - two states kind of a deal. Commonwealth was established in 1569.
  - ajuc 6y ago
    It changed with time and successive personal unions. By 1569 the Commonwealth was already functioning in practice before it was formalized.