Abstract

The specific political culture of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and its changes, leading to state reforms by the end of the 18th century, require a methodological approach, which would allow understanding the flow and interconnectedness of the ideas between wider European and smaller local contexts. Arguing that entangled history approach allows understanding peripheral contexts better, the article presents specific aspects of the Polish-Lithuanian Enlightenment creating the context for conceptual change in political thinking. The context specific details are presented with the analysis of Vilnius University related discourse showing that the Enlightenment ideas were used to achieve certain goals of local improvement.

Highlights

  • The unprecedented situation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by the turn of the 18th century makes it an interesting and distinct case of European political development

  • This local network at the same time had to deal with an external pressure of the Enlightenment forces causing uneven influences on ISSN 2335-2337 eISSN 2424-5488 Baltic Journal of Political Science local hubs of political thought and forming their own distinct character

  • This article relies on the main methodological principles of the history of ideas with an emphasis of the specific Lithuanian context during the particular historical period of the Enlightenment arguing that tools of entangled history approach allow understanding the particularity of the Lithuanian case better

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Summary

Introduction

ISSN 2335-2337 eISSN 2424-5488 Baltic Journal of Political Science local hubs of political thought and forming their own distinct character. It is one of the most visible aspects of conceptual change in political thinking, but in order to understand how and why it happened in the state, where at least one-tenth of the population, having a right of political assembly and decision-making, allowed to drop one their most precious privileges, one has to delve into the 18th century political debates themselves These debates understood as political thought in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Enlightenment require analysis of the historical discourse to understand texts of that time, to reconstruct thinking and ideas used. Periphery as Context: Enlightenment Influences Towards Conceptual Change in Polish-Lithuanian Political Thinking in the Later 18th Century peripheral context better (Chapter 2) It is followed by the analysis of political thought in Vilnius as local centre of ideas and Vilnius University related discourse to illustrate specific aspects of the Polish-Lithuanian Enlightenment and shed light on the Polish-Lithuanian entanglements (Chapter 3).

History of Ideas
Entangled history
Case of Polish-Lithuanian entanglements
Periphery speaks: local transformations
Catholic Enlightenment
Conceptual change
Conclusions
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