Miasta i mieszczanie w życiu politycznym przedrozbiorowej Polski

The publication is devoted to the problems of towns and townspeople’s activity in the political life of Poland before the Partitions. The research problem taken up in the article determined the possibly universal understanding of the term “town” and resignation from penetrating into terminological disputes related to the multifaceted nature of “urban issues” resulting in polemical multithreading in the doctrine. A broad temporal range was supposed to show the dynamics of undertaken actions, the progress and regress of the discussed process and the diversity of forms of active participation of towns and townspeople in the political life of the state. The author also tried to consider whether the explored issue could have an impact on the original direction of the systemic evolution of the former Polish statehood.