Abstract
AbstractThe paper deals with the role played by the Jesuit in the political formation of the Lithuanian elite during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The author analyzes the influence of the Jesuit school system on the political culture of the nobility through rhetoric, theatre and public examinations. In particular, it shows the elements of continuity, such as the unquestioned value of classical literature and Humanistic formation. These contributed to shape the political ethos of Polish-Lithuanian elites, based on consensus and active participation in public life. The changes introduced as a result of the reform of Jesuit school system did not alter the traditional understanding of education, but rather answered to the need for better qualified civil servants in an age of modernization of the Polish-Lithuanian state.
Highlights
In the last decades researchers from Western Europe and the United States have explored the relationship between Jesuits and politics
The changes introduced as a result of the reform of Jesuit school system did not alter the traditional understanding of education, but rather answered to the need for better qualified civil servants in an age of modernization of the Polish-Lithuanian state
Since the nineteenth century Polish historiography has attempted to assess whether the influence of the Jesuit Order contributed to the decline of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, a process which eventually led to its partition by the neighbouring powers of Austria, Prussia and Russia
Summary
In the last decades researchers from Western Europe and the United States have explored the relationship between Jesuits and politics. In this vast central-European state the power of the monarch was limited by a strong nobility (Pol. szlachta). Despite the scepticism of some early Jesuits like Piotr Skarga[50], Polish readers could find many similarities between the Maritime Republic and the political system of the Commonwealth[51] This explains the popularity of Contarini’s treatise in the second half of the sixteenth and during the seventeenth century as well as its presence in several Jesuit libraries[52]. Due to the inscription of his works into the Roman index of forbidden books, Polish-Lithuanian Jesuits had to be cautious: they usually quoted and translated him without mentioning the source[60]
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