Dzieje kultury europejskiej i polskiej XVIII wieku w ujęciu polskich uczonych w XX stuleciu. Wybrane zagadnienia

Abstract

The article discusses the dispute over the chronology of the Enlightenment in Poland and the views of Józef Gierowski and Jacek Staszewski regarding the assessment of the Saxon times and the origins of the Polish Enlightenment. The problem of the reception of Western cultures (French, English, Italian and German) in the times of the Enlightenment in Poland was also treated more broadly. After presenting various understandings of culture in Polish historiography, the positions of Polish researchers on the assessment of the Enlightenment in Europe (Emanuel Rostworowski) and then the culture of the Saxon times and the Enlightenment in Poland (Józef Andrzej Gierowski, Janusz Maciejewski, Jacek Staszewski) were discussed. The achievements of Polish historiography in the field of research on the reception in Poland of the works of the most eminent authors of the French Enlightenment (these were primarily Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Montesquieu), English (including Locke), Italian (Genovesi, Beccaria) and German (including Wolff, Gottsched) were shown in greater detail. The reception of this work would not have been possible without the appearance in Poland of an intellectual elite, often speaking French, who were able to evaluate and appreciate the innovative views of Western writers and philosophers.