The Polish Noble Society of the Early 1690s. Annotation and Counter-Reformation

Abstract

The article analyzes evidence from publicistic texts about the reaction of the Polish nobility of different confessions to the pogroms of Protestant churches in cities in the early 1690s, where the nature of interfaith relations differed drastically from their nature in many other European countries. A number of acts here sanctioned the legality of the existence in the country of Christian denominations different from the dominant Catholic faith. But in the 1590s, persecution of followers of Protestantism began. Particular attention in the article is paid to the reasons of the strong negative reaction of nobility to their «sbors» by supporters of the Counter-Reformation. Among them the author names the specific consciousness of the Polish noble society: both the Catholic and Protestant gentry perceived themselves as a single community interested in preserving and expanding their class rights.