History of Poland in the Early Modern Period [2900-L-HNWPL-ANG] Semestr letni 2025/26
Ćwiczenia, grupa nr 1

Useful readings:

Antoni Mączak, Życie codzienne w podróżach po Europie w XVI i XVII wieku, Warszawa 1978.

Antoni Mączak, Travel in Early Modern Europe, transl. by Ursula Phillips, Cambridge 1995

Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment, Stanford 1994.

The Polish Renaissance in its European Context, ed. Samuel Fiszman, Bloomington and Indianapolis 1988

The Polish-Lithuanian Monarchy in European Context, c. 1500-1795, ed. Richard Butterwick, Basingstoke 200

Constitution and Reform in Eighteenth-Century Poland: The Constitution of 3 May 1791, ed. Samuel Fiszman, Bloomington 1997

Norman Davies, The God’s Playground, vol. 1.

Urszula Augustyniak, History of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth: State—Society—Culture, translated by Grażyna Waluga and Dorota Sobstel, Frankfurt am Main 2015.

The texts required for each class will be announced during the proceeding class.

The majority of the primary and secondary sources will be accessible online: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1FlROR_aHj3hxVCPChNdnMY2-n-wRRS3p?usp=drive_link

1 – Introduction to the course

Tomasz Grusiecki, “Sarmatia Revisited. Maps and the Making of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth”. In Stanley Bill, Simon Lewis (eds.) Transcultural Things and the Spectre of Orientalism in Early Modern Poland-Lithuania. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2023, 113 – 135.

2 – Introduction to the course 2

Radhika Seshan, The Constructions of the East in Western Travel Narratives, 1200 CE to 1800 CE, Oxford-NY 2019

3 and 4 – On the political system of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Gaspar de Tende, An Account of Poland Containing a Geographical Description of the Country, the Manners of the Inhabitants, and the Wars They Have Been Engag'd In, the Constitution of That Government, Particularly the Manner of Electing and Crowning Their King, London 1698, first English edition (reprint: Charleston SC 2011)

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A64345.0001.001?view=toc

Robert Frost, Initium Calamitatis Regni? John Casimir and monarchical power in Poland-Lithuania 1648–1668, “European History Quarterly” 16/2 (1986), 181-207.

Robert Frost, The Ethiopian and the Elephant: Louise-Marie Gonzaga and queenship in an elective monarchy, 1645–1667’, “Slavonic and Eastern Review”, 91/4 (2013), 787-819.

Robert Frost, The Death of Military Culture? The Citizen Army and the Military Failure of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1648-1717, in: Winfried Speitkamp, ed. Gewaltgemeinschaften: Von der Spätantike bis ins 20. Jahrhundert (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 2013), 207–227.

5 and 6 - The Wild Fields viewed by Erich Lassota and Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan.

Habsburgs and Zaporozhian Cossacks: The Diary of Erich Lassota von Steblau, 1594, edited and with an Introduction by Lubomyr R. Wynar; translated by Orest Subtelny. Littleton, Colo.: Ukrainian Academic Press, 1975;

Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan, A Description of Ukraine, translated with commentary by Andrew Pernal, Dennis Essar, Cambridge MA 1991.

Victor Ostapchuk, The Zaporozhian Cossacks and the Dnipro River Refugium, in: Mediterranean Rivers in Global Perspective, Eds. Johannes Bernhardt and Markus Koller. Leiden 2019, 273-302.

Sergii Plokhy, The Cossacks and Religion in Early Modern Ukraine (Chapter 1: The Ukrainian Cossacks), Oxford 2004.

9 – An adventurous life of a Central-Eastern European woman – the travels of Samuela Pilszynowa

The Istanbul Memories in Salomea Pilsztynowa’s Diary »Echo of the Journey and Adventures of My Life« (1760), eds. Stanisław Roszak, Paulina Dominik, Bonn 2017.

https://www.academia.edu/33591960/

10 and 11 – Everyday life of the “common people” in Poland-Lithuania

Joseph Marshall, Travels through Germany, Russia, and Poland, 1769-1770, London 1772 (reprint: New York 1971)

L. Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe : the map of civilization on the mind of the Enlightenment, Stanford 1994, s. 1-49.

1- A general description of the condition of the peasants in Poland-Lithuanian in the textbook by Urszula Augustyniak (pages 265-269) available on the GoogleDrive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cQXnoXHYkfzPFBzfVKfysYbtLBUGl3T3/view?usp=drive_link

2 - "Introduction" and "the three stories" (pp. 201-211) and whatever else you find interesting from truly fascinating study by Tomasz Wiślicz, "Love in the fields: relationships and marriage in rural Poland in the early modern age: social imagery and personal experience", Warsaw 2018, which is available online:

https://rcin.org.pl/ihpan/dlibra/publication/84658/edition/65875/content

12 – Lady Elizabeth Craven in the East

A Journey Through the Crimea to Constantinople: In a Series of Letters from the Right Honourable Elizabeth Lady Craven…, 1789 (reprint)

Jacek Kordel, WAS THE POLISH-LITHUANIAN COMMONWEALTH A KINGDOM OF ANARCHY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY? FOREIGN PERCEPTIONS, POLITICAL NARRATIVES, AND THE JUSTIFICATION OF PARTITION, “Wiek Oświecenia, 2025, 115-142

Chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://wuw.pl/data/include/cms/WO_2025_41.pdf

Józef Andrzej Gierowski, Reforms in Poland after the ‘Dumb Diet’ (1717), in: Constitution and Reform in Eighteenth-Century Poland: The Constitution of 3 May 1791, ed. Samuel Fiszman, Bloomington 1997.

Zofia Zielińska, Poland between Prussia and Russia in the 18th Century, in: Constitution and Reform in Eighteenth-Century Poland: The Constitution of 3 May 1791, ed. Samuel Fiszman, Bloomington 1997.

13 – Princess Izabela Czartoryska in England Tour through England: diary of princess Izabela Czartoryska from travels around England and Scotland in 1790 / Izabela Czartoryska née Flemming ; edited with an introduction by Agnieszka Whelan, translated by Agnieszka Whelan and Zdzisław Żygulski jun., Toruń 2015. [IH XIb.1618]

Richard Butterwick, Poland's Last King and English Culture: Stanisław August Poniatowski, 1732-1798 (Chapter 5, and optionally 1and 2), Oxford 1998.

Participation to classes is compulsory and students are required to actively contribute to the discussions. Carefully reading the assigned texts is crucial to actively and critically participate in classes. The final grade will based on the active participation in the classes.

dr Natalia Królikowska-Jedlińska