VecheVeche (véče; wiec; víče, ˈʋit͡ʃe; viéča, ˈvjɛt͡ʂa; věšte) was a popular assembly in medieval Slavic countries. In Novgorod and in Pskov, where the veche acquired great prominence, the veche was broadly similar to the Norse thing or the Swiss Landsgemeinde. The word is inherited from Proto-Slavonic *větje , meaning 'council', 'counsel' or 'talk' (which is also represented in the word "soviet", both ultimately deriving from Proto-Slavic verbal stem of *větiti 'to talk, speak').
SarmatismSarmatism (or Sarmatianism; Sarmatyzm; Sarmatizmas) was an ethno-cultural ideology within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was the dominant Baroque culture and ideology of the nobility (szlachta) that existed in times of the Renaissance to the 18th centuries. Together with the concept of "Golden Liberty", it formed a central aspect of the Commonwealth's culture and society. At its core was the unifying belief that the people of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth descended from the ancient Iranian Sarmatians, the legendary invaders of contemporary Polish lands in antiquity.
RzeczpospolitaRzeczpospolita (AUDPl-Rzeczpospolita.oggrzeczpo'spolita) is the official name of Poland and a traditional name for some of its predecessor states. It is a compound of the terms rzecz "thing, matter" and pospolity "common", a calque of Latin rés pública (rés "thing" + pública "public, common"), i.e. republic, in English also rendered as commonwealth (historic) and republic (current). In modern Polish, the word rzeczpospolita is used exclusively in relation to the Republic of Poland, while any other republic is referred to in Polish as a republika, e.
Casimir III the GreatCasimir III the Great (Kazimierz III Wielki; 30 April 1310 – 5 November 1370) reigned as the King of Poland from 1333 to 1370. He also later became King of Ruthenia in 1340, and fought to retain the title in the Galicia-Volhynia Wars. He was the last Polish king from the Piast dynasty. Casimir inherited a kingdom weakened by war and made it prosperous and wealthy. He reformed the Polish army and doubled the size of the kingdom. He reformed the judicial system and introduced a legal code, gaining the title "the Polish Justinian".
