Oświecenie w syntezach dziejów Rzeczypospolitej Józefa Andrzeja Gierowskiego (na tle ujęć Władysława Konopczyńskiego i Celiny Bobińskiej)

Abstract

The Enlightenment occupied an important place in the oeuvre of Professor Józef Andrzej Gierowski. This piece presents his evolving views on the Enlightenment in three syntheses of the history of early modern Poland and the Polish‑Lithuanian Commonwealth: two university textbooks first published in 1967 and 1978 respectively, and a book addressed to a wider, non‑academic readership first published in 2001, much of which was presented to Anglophone readers in 1996. J. A. Gierowski’s views are presented against the background of the sardonic references to “the enlightened age” and “enlightened Europe” in the synthesis published by his supervisor, Władysław Konopczyński in 1936, as well as the Marxist‑Leninist scheme of the Enlightenment forced on historiography and the humanities in postwar Poland, especially by Celina Bobińska. J. A. Gierowski’s view of “the ideology of the Enlightenment” gradually shifted from the primacy of rationalist and materialist thinking to the aim of the pursuit of happi-ness within human society. While still emphasising economic and social factors, including the role of the bourgeoisie in the Dutch Republic, England and France, he increasingly distanced himself from the model of the Enlightenment as the ideology of the rising bourgeoisie, forced on him in the early stages of his academic career. After long reflection on the question of the reception and originality of the Enlightenment in the Commonwealth, he came to appreciate the contributions of Royal Prussian burghers, the Catholic clergy and the Polish‑Lithuanian nobility. He also jettisoned the postwar dogma that the beginning of the capitalist order in Poland should be dated to 1764.