Poland

The complete opposite of the politics and society of the French absolutism was Poland.[1] The country was in chaos and not united at all. In fact, by the end of the 1700s it was no longer a country, divided between Russia, Prussia, and Brandenburg. It would not be restored until Napoleon Bonaparte’s era. This was all created by aristocracy’s dominance. They wouldn’t allow the government to centralize.

The country had a good king in John III, who was well known because of his helping Vienna from the Turks in 1683, and he had a good and enthusiastic army which he used against Poland’s foes: Germany, Sweden, Russia, and the Turks. But once battles ended he had little power. The kings of Poland were elected by nobles and thus had to agree not to interfere with the noble’s independence. The nobles were in turn gaining massive amounts of wealth from their serfs and fertile land while the crown had no revenue or bureaucracy. This led Poland to continue to be a feudal kingdom with un-unified power.

Works Referenced
Chambers, Mortimer; Grew, Raymond; Herlihy, David; Rabb, Theodore K.; Woloch, Isser. The Western Experience: Sixth Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991

1 All information from the above named source, page 555