Enlightenment in Poland

The ideas of the Age of Enlightenment in Poland were developed later than in the Western Europe, as Polish bourgeoisie was weaker, and szlachta (nobility) culture (Sarmatism) together with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth political system (Golden Liberty) were in deep crisis. The period of Polish Enlightenment began in the 1730s–40s, peaked in the reign of Poland's last king, Stanisław August Poniatowski (second half of the 18th century), went into decline with the Third Partition of Poland (1795) – a national tragedy inspiring a short period of sentimental writing – and ended in 1822, replaced by Romanticism.

Polish Enlightenment, while sharing many common qualities with the classical Enlightenment movements of Western Europe, also differed from them in many important aspects. Much of the thought of the Western Enlightenment evolved under the oppressive absolute monarchies and was dedicated towards fighting for more freedom. Western thinkers desired Montesquieu's separation and balance of powers to restrict the nearly unlimited power of their monarchs. Polish Enlightenment, however, developed in a very different background. The Polish political system was almost the opposite of the absolute monarchy: Polish kings were elected and their position was very weak, with most of the powers in the hands of the parliament (Sejm). Polish reforms desired the elimination of laws that transformed their system into a near-anarchy, resulting from abuse of consensus voting in Sejm (liberum veto) that paralyzed the Commonwealth, especially during the times of the Wettin dynasty, reducing Poland from a major European player to the puppet of its neighbours. Thus, while men of the Enlightenment in France and Prussia wrote about the need for more checks and balances on their kings, Polish Enlightenment was geared towards fighting the abuses stemming from too many checks and balances.

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