Citizenship and identity in a multinational commonwealth : Poland-Lithuania in context, 1550-1772 / / edited by Karin Friedrich and Barbara M. Pendzich.

• Superior document: Studies in Central European histories, v. 46
• TeilnehmendeR: Friedrich, Karin.; Pendzich, Barbara M.
• Year of Publication: 2009
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Studies in Central European histories ; v. 46.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (339 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

This volume seeks to address the doubts harboured by the West about the ability of East Central European states to build modern democracies and tolerant societies after the expansion of the European Union eastwards. The tradition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is thereby often overlooked in favour of the nationalist romanticism and xenophobia of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, which arose from the specific context of the partitions of 1772-95. Yet citizenship in a multinational context was a central theme of the political debate in early modern Poland-Lithuania. For many contemporary religious and national conflicts, this Commonwealth cannot be a direct model for imitation, but may serve as a source of inspiration due to the creative solutions and compromises it negotiated while integrating many faiths and ethnicities. Contributors are James B. Collins, Karin Friedrich, Gershon David Hundert, Joanna Kostyło, Krzysztof Łazarski, Allan I. Macinnes, Barbara M. Pendzich, Felicia Roşu, Barbara Skinner, and Artūras Vasiliauskas.

Table of Contents

Monarch, citizens, and the law under Stefan Batory : the legal reform of 1578 / Felicia Ro{commab}su -- Citizenship in the periphery : royal Prussia and the Union of Lublin 1569 / Karin Friedrich -- The practice of citizenship among the Lithuanian nobility, ca. 1580-1630 / Art{macr}uras Vasiliauskas -- Civic resilience and cohesion in the face of Muscovite occupation / Barbara M. Pendzich -- Identity formation in the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth / Gershon David Hundert -- Khmelnytsky's shadow : the confessional legacy / Barbara Skinner -- Commonwealth of all faiths : republican myth and the Italian diaspora in sixteenth-century Poland-Lithuania / Joanna Kostylo -- 'County republicans' and the concept of active citizenship in sixteenth-century Poland and France / James B. Collins -- The hidden commonwealth : Poland-Lithuania and Scottish political discourse in the seventeenth century / Allan Macinnes -- Freedom, state and "national unity" in Lord Acton's thought / Krzysztof ℗Łazarski.