Celebrations at the Royal Court and Their Reception in the Festive Life of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Abstract

The author traces the transition of the royal court of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to the Western European model of court ceremonies, which lasted for almost two centuries, from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Initially, they followed the ceremonial models of the House of Habsburg and, starting in the 1640s, the French ceremonial, refined at the Versailles of Louis XIV. Meant to extol the monarch in the eyes of subjects, such ceremonies became widespread under kings of the House of Vasa, Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki, Jan III Sobieski, and the House of Wettin. Many etiquette elements and ceremonial patterns were borrowed and adapted to the needs of the wealthy Polish and Lithuanian nobility, who followed the example of the royal court in Krakow and Warsaw. The author concludes that the borrowed cultural models had a significant influence on the everyday life of residences and palaces and on the theatricalisation of private aristocratic ceremonies, which was reflected in the way nobles dressed, moved, the style of music they played, and in illumination and the use of fireworks. Balls grew considerably more important; in the eighteenth century, opera and play productions attracted more interest. These elements are the most significant borrowings from the ceremonial practices of the Western European and local royal courts of the Warsaw-Dresden House of Wettin. However, the ceremonial culture of the Polish-Lithuanian aristocracy retained a number of traditional elements, which is especially noticeable in the organisation of weddings, funerals, and religious rituals. The author maintains that in magnate and aristocratic courts, they followed a ceremonial pattern which united elements of both traditional and new types of ceremonies. A similar tendency was characteristic of Russia, where in the eighteenth century, traditional customs were integrated into a new system of organising celebrations borrowed from Western Europe while retaining a number of unique elements.