In the 18th century there were significant differences between the monarchies of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and France. On the one hand, the Polish-Lithuanian state had a constitutional monarchy – a system in which the king reigned but did not rule because he was restricted by the nobility. On the other hand, in France, there was the model of absolute monarchy, which was increasingly questioned in the 18th century. Both on the Vistula and on the Seine scholars discussed the ideal form of the system.
One of the main issues in this debate was the extent of a ruler's power – should it be unlimited or should it be shared with their subjects? Is the ideal monarch an absolute monarch or rather a primus inter pares?
Dr Joanna Orzeł will analyse the image of the ruler in Polish and French historiographic works, as well as focus on the cultural transfer, i.e., the infiltration of political thought and ways of presenting the ruler by French scholars into works written in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Dr Joanna Orzeł explains:
An example of such a transfer is the use of the ancient, but very eagerly realized in France solar cult (Louis XIV as the Sun King) also by Poles, e.g., by Jakub Kazimierz Rubinkowski. In his panegyric August II Wettin turned out to be the Polish Sun King. I will also try to answer the question if the republican ideas cultivated by some scholars in the Republic could have been interesting for French thinkers.
The researcher will analyse the most important historiographical works, authored, among others, by Voltaire, Monteskius and Henri de Boullainvilliers from France or Stanisław Dunin Karwicki, Franciszek Bohomolc, Szymon Majchrowicz and Ignacy Krasicki from the Republic of Poland.
Dr Joanna Orzeł explains:
I believe that it is important for the research to have an insight into, as we would say today, works of popular culture, i.e., dictionaries, compendia of knowledge and finally encyclopaedias, which popularized a specific model of an ideal ruler, consistent with the worldview of individual authors. That's why I have decided to use this type of materials in my work.
Thanks to the research stay, dr Joanna Orzeł will also have an opportunity to confront her analyses with researchers from the host institution, the Centre Roland Mousnier.
The researcher sums up:
I really want to cooperate with a centre which in its assumption focuses on comparative studies in order to better define the European civilization of the 16th and 18th centuries.
Source: Faculty of Philosophy and History, UL
Edit: Promotion Centre, UL