Concept
Polish Enlightenment
Overview
The ideas of the Age of Enlightenment in Poland were developed later than in Western Europe, as the 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 (1764–1795), 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.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
To this condition of beautifully phosphorescent rot-heap has Poland ripened, in the helpless reigns of those poor Augusts;--the fulness of time not now far off, one would say? It would complete the picture, could I go into the state of what is called "Religion" in Poland. Dissenterism, of various poor types, is extensive; and, over against it, is such a type of Jesuit Fanaticism as has no fellow in that day. Of…
Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 21
States what Polish Enlightenment is.
Since established political forms were tied up with other institutions, especially ecclesiastical, and with a solid body of tradition and inherited belief, the revolt also extended to the latter. Thus it happened that the intellectual terms in which the movement expressed itself had a negative import even when they seemed to be positive. Freedom presented itself as an end in itself, though it signified in fact…
John Dewey, The public and its problems
Close in meaning to Polish Enlightenment; the term itself is not named.
The whole of the polity and economy of every country in Europe has been derived from the same sources. It was drawn from the old Germanic or Gothic custumary, from the feudal institutions which must be considered as an emanation from that custumary; and the whole has been improved and digested into system and discipline by the Roman law. From hence arose the several orders, with or without a monarch (which are…
Edmund Burke, Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke
States what Polish Enlightenment is.
Related ideas
- Commission of National Education
- Kraków
- Monarch
- Poland
- Poznań
- Separation of powers
- Age of Enlightenment
- Warsaw
- Western Europe
- Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
- Stanisław August Poniatowski
- Congress Poland
- Montesquieu
- Bourgeoisie
- Absolute monarchy
- Classicism
- National anthem
- Hugo Kołłątaj
- Stanisław Leszczyński
- Stanisław Konarski
- Stanisław Staszic
- Jan Śniadecki
- Tadeusz Czacki
Place in the tradition
Part of History of philosophy in Poland.