Logo
  • Register
  • Login
    •  
      Język Polski   English
    baner
    Published : 2023-03-31
    Vol. 71 No. 1 (2023)

    A Lonely Island or the Free among the Free? The Image of Free Republics in Political Discourse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

    Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz

    https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0775-7263

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rf23711.4

    Abstract

    Researchers have long drawn attention to the deep conviction of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth nobility about the uniqueness of their country and its freedoms. Contrary to what is sometimes believed, it was not an expression of Sarmatian megalomania, which made itself felt in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, this opinion was propagated at least from the middle of the sixteenth century. Nor was it some kind of Polish peculiarity, citizens of other free commonwealths said and probably thought about their freedoms in a similar way. Already in the 15th century, the inhabitants of Florence considered their republic to be unique and extraordinary, precisely because of its freedom. The Venetians, and later the Dutch and the English, assessed their country and freedom in a similar way. The sentence: “there is only one kingdom on earth where freedom has found a home” contrary to appearances does not refer to the Sarmatian Commonwealth, but to Hanoverian England, and its author believed that his homeland was the only country and the British were the only people who can truly say about himself: “we are free.” Noble citizens of Polish Republic entered this discourse early, even before the first free election.

    The author discusses the history of this discourse in the times of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, stating that, contrary to the references in the 16th century, and even at the beginning of the 17th century, later references to republics other than the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth or ancient republics (especially Rome) were not numerous and quite superficial, their authors generally did not know much about the mentioned countries, but they had no doubts that they share a certain similarity with the Commonwealth, which could be described as a community of freedom. Because this very motif, also important earlier, became dominant in the 17th century and the first half of the 18 century. The crisis and ossification of political reflection, combined with a decrease in interest in the outside world, meant that more extensive references to other countries and their political solutions no longer appeared in noble political discussions. Their participants, however, continued to include their country in a fairly elite community of European republics and still, regardless of all social, religious and political differences, of which they were often unaware, they still considered them their “companions.”

    Keywords:

    freedom, res publica, republic, political discussion, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth



    Details

    References

    Statistics

    Authors

    Download files

    pdf (Język Polski)

    Altmetric indicators


    Cited by / Share


    Licence


    Roczniki Filozoficzne · ISSN 0035-7685 | eISSN 2450-002X
    © Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL & Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II


    Articles are licensed under a Creative Commons  Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)