Between 1655 and 1660 the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was invaded simultaneously by Sweden and Muscovy, in a catastrophe Polish historiography calls the Deluge. Warsaw, Krakow and Vilnius were captured and systematically plundered; Vilnius burned for days in 1655 and Warsaw was stripped of its libraries, archives and building materials. Muscovite forces deported captives from the Lithuanian towns, with skilled craftsmen resettled in Moscow. Jewish communities suffered heavily, both in the earlier Cossack uprising and at the hands of Polish irregulars who accused them of collaborating with the Swedes. Modern demographic reconstructions put the Commonwealth's overall population loss across 1648-1660 at around a third, comparable in proportion to the Thirty Years War in Germany, though war, famine and plague cannot be disentangled.
Swedish and Muscovite armies invaded the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, sacking its cities and, in the Russian case, carrying off large numbers of Lithuanian and Belarusian captives and craftsmen
Hearth-tax and poll registers, as reconstructed by Polish historical demographers, put the Commonwealth at roughly 10-12 million in 1650 and at about 6-7 million by 1660 after war, plague and famine - losses of a third or more, comparable to the Thirty Years War in Germany. The Muscovite deportations of Lithuanian and Belarusian townspeople and craftsmen are documented in campaign records but not separately counted.
The range is a modern demographic reconstruction of total population loss across 1648-1660 by Polish historians working from hearth taxes and parish records; it includes emigration and depressed births as well as deaths, and folds together the Cossack uprising, the Swedish and Russian invasions, famine and plague. No contemporary count exists.
Polish and Lithuanian chronicles and the surviving municipal records of Warsaw, Krakow and Vilnius document the sacking, burning and removal of church and library property.
Poland, Lithuania, Russia