The following paper, which bases its research findings on Sejm journals, presents the involvement of the members of the military in the royal election of 1648, which resulted in the election of Jan Kazimierz. Moreover, the article discusses the attitudes of the civilian part of the society, which tended to be predominantly negative on account of the perceived excessive involvement of the military in the political matters of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. This, in turn, resulted in the involvement of entire military units (according to the calculations of the author, over ten thousand military troops attended the royal election). The election was not the only important matter discussed during the proceedings. Those deliberations included also the discussion on the reasons for the defeat in the battle of Piławce and assigning blame for the defeat to particular people. The article presents the state of the Polish-Lithuanian army as well as the problems it encountered at that time, which were debated during the proceedings, and the solutions to which included instituting new taxes and appointing new leaders. The author points to the hostility of the nobility towards the military, which stemmed from the belief in their incompetence and thirst for personal gain. The problems included predominantly the issues of the costs of the campaign and the attempts on the military’s part at influencing the proceedings. In addition, the article presents the possible solutions — of varying levels of adequacy — for solving the Cossack uprising, pointing out the necessity for appointing new military leaders and increasing the army’s finances through additional taxation. In the conclusion, the author remarks that the military involvement in the royal election could have significantly influenced their proceedings and outcomes.

The second half of the 17th century history of the Great Duchy of Lithuania was dominated by the hegemony of two families: the Pac family and the Sapieha family. The latter managed to seize control over all spheres of public life and made decisions regarding the attitude of Lithuania with regard to the king and the Republic of Poland. The period of domination of the Sapieha family dates from 1685 to the early 1690s., when the plans of Jan III Sobieski, who attempted to build a political force that could withstand and counterbalance the influence of the Sapieha family, started to come to fruition. This, in turn, resulted in armed conflicts in the late 1690s aimed against the Sapieha family and an eventual civil war in Lithuania. After the lost battle at Olkieniki and the unsuccessful attempts at pacifying Lithuania, the Sapieha family started to look for protection, in the face of the actions of the Polish military. To this end, they supported Charles XII of Sweden, who went to war against the Polish Republic. The help of Charles’s troops guaranteed the Sapieha family that they would recover their lost estates. On March 6, 1702, the Sapieha family announced a manifesto, in which they attempted to justify their actions to the nobility and aristocracy. Their alliance with Sweden was dictated by personal reasons which nonetheless influenced the functioning of the entire family, as evidenced by the repeated mentions of the ruin of their estates and the inability of the republic to keep their promises. The Sapieha goods, which constituted the foundations of not only the family’s existence, but also the functioning of their entire faction, became the first object of aggression on the part of the republicans, who, driven by vengeance and greed, attempted to destroy the foundations of the functioning of the Sapieha faction as well as the family itself. There can be no doubt that the Sapieha family turned to Charles XII for help in an attempt at regaining the lost political influence as well as their fortune, and that they planned to bring the perpetrators of their downfall to — what was in their opinion — justice.

The aim of this article is to conduct a preliminary overview of the Speakers of the Poznań and Kalisz Voivodeships Regional Assembly (sejmik) during the reign of Augustus III. The nobility of Poznań and Kalisz Voivodeships of those times met at eighty-five assemblies, but there exist records of only thirty-three speakers. Due to the fact that some of the aforementioned speakers were elected more than once, the article presents the figures of twenty-four individuals total, who accounted for a sample of the regional elite of the Greateer Poland.

The article aims at presenting the political activity of Anna Jabłonowska during the Bar Confederation. The research is based on the letters of Anna Jabłonowska, the wife of the Voivod of Bracław, to Teofila Sapieha, kept in the Stefanyk National Science Library in Lvov. The author discusses first and foremost the events which took place in the Great Duchy of Lithuania, paying particular attention to the conflict between Józef Sapieha and Michał Ogiński, regarding the leadership position over the confederate Lithuanian forces, as well as the issues regarding the political involvement of the duchess.

The article discusses the model of a perfect citizen described in the pastoral letters of Michał J. Poniatowski, the Bishop of Płock (1773—1784). The author bases his reconstruction of that model on the so-called recommendations for prayer for the souls of the departed. Those “recommendations” were devoted to eight prominent figures who lived at the turn of the 18th century and who were put forward as examples to follow for other people. Apart from the Archbishop A.K. Ostrowski, the people in question were either lay senators or high-level state officials. It is impossible to determine the level of involvement of the bishop himself in the form and content of the documents issued by his office in Warsaw. It is also impossible to deny that several of the aforementioned officials were either related to or friends with the Bishop Poniatowski and his brother — king Stanisław August.

The discussed letters contain a list of attributes of a state official, who was to be a patriot and a faithful servant of the king at the same time. Among those attributes, the bishop differentiated private virtues, concerned with family life, as well as the more commonly mentioned public virtues, which were to help in managing the life of public service. For context, the author contrasts his findings with other models of citizenship permeating the preaching practice of that time and included in the program letter of the Bishop M.J. Poniatowski dating August 20, 1775. Moreover, the article includes certain biographical facts concerning the figures in question, which could be seen as unflattering and for that reason were excluded from the “recommendations” for prayer. The fact that the pastoral letters were printed by the Royal as well as the Commission of National Education printing houses further establishes the notion of active cooperation between the king and the Church officials in the effort of creating ideals of citizenship recognized and propagated by his closest advisors

In 1815—1864, the majority of the monasteries of the Pauline Fathers were located in the Kingdom of Poland (only the monastery in Skałka in Kraków was located outside of the Kingdom). There was a degree of antipathy tinged with hostility among the authorities of the Kingdom of Poland with regard to contemplative orders, which were regarded by them as lacking any benefits for the rest of society. Moreover, a significant part of the Church hierarchy was opposed to this type of orders. However, the Pauline Fathers ran parishes in their monasteries, which mitigated somewhat the hostility of the elites of that time towards the order. In 1818, the Pauline Fathers lost their monastery in Wieluń, followed by seven other monasteries in 1819, which were closed down by the secular and Church authorities. In the following years, nonetheless, the order reclaimed their monastery in Wielgomłyny, and in 1869, after several years of concentrated efforts, the monastery in Brdów. The Pauline monasteries were carefully controlled by the administrative and diocesan authorities. There were numerous conflicts regarding admittance to the order, as well as several instances of seizure of monastery documentation. Economic matters were also subject to state control. The Pauline Fathers played active parts in the November Uprising, donating to the uprising authorities and financing soldiers fighting in the uprising. The situation of the order deteriorated following the fall of the uprising and the introduction of the martial law by Nicholas I, which impeded mobility between particular monasteries. In addition to that, the process of admittance as well as economic issues became subject to even stricter state control.

The Pauline Fathers played an important active part in the events of the years 1861—1864. They organized numerous patriotic services and congresses of the Church hierarchy. A few members of the order, moreover, functioned as chaplains for the insurgents, while others were actively engaged in the conspiracy. There are also several documented instances of armed Pauline Fathers taking part in the fight. As retribution for their activities, in 1864 the Russian authorities closed down all of their monasteries, barring the monastery in Częstochowa.

The article discusses the educational actions of the Greek Orthodox Church in Eastern Galicia and Transcarpathia. In the interwar period, the religious influence remained one of the key elements of national identity creation of the Ukrainians. In particular, the Greek Orthodox Church played an important role in the preservation of the national and religious identity of the Ukrainian people. The Orthodox clergy — particularly in Eastern Galicia, and to a lesser extent in Transcarpathia — constituted a powerful force in shaping the development of the Ukrainian political life. The Church exerted a significant influence on the development of Ukrainian culture and national heritage, and throughout the 1920s and 1930s, it remained an important factor in the unification and spiritual guidance in the fight for the Ukrainian independence. The Greek Orthodox Church was not only extremely important for the development of the secular system of schooling, but also actively took part in educational, scholarly, cultural and charity efforts. Its main mission was to educate the inhabitant of Transcarpathia and Eastern Galicia in the religious and national spirit.

Cieszyn Silesia is a region which occupies both sides of the current Czech-Polish border. However, in the past, for many centuries it constituted a cohesive administrative unit belonging to Poland, Czech and Austria. After the I World War, Europe saw the formation or rebirth of several nations, such as Czechoslovakia and Poland. At that time, the region in question presented a rich cultural mosaic, even though the majority of the inhabitants were of Polish descent. The region was dedicated primarily to heavy engineering and coal mining.
At the end of 1918, a conflict arose between the First Republic and the Second Polish Republic for this patch of Silesia, which ended with the decree of the Council of Ambassadors of 28 July 1920, ordering the division of the disputed area along the Olza river. The authorities in Warsaw did not come to terms with this verdict, and for a few months they entertained the prospect of regaining the land west of the Olza. The Czechoslovak government, in turn, carefully observed at the actions of its northern neighbour, while its agents sent reports to Prague about the current situation. The relations between the two countries had not stabilized until 1922.

The following article aims at showcasing the changes in the attitude of the Catholic Church towards various sects against the backdrop of the transformations in the Polish Upper Silesia. According to the Catholic Church, the existence of various sects contributed to the further destabilization of the world, already shaken by the events of World War I, and broke social order as well religious unity. For these reasons, apart from the obvious differences in dogma, the Church in the Polish Upper Silesia strongly opposed sectarian movements. The most effective way to counteract these perceived issues was, according to the Church, to discredit the sectarians in the eyes of the Catholic public. For that reason, the Catholic press published reports showing the devastating impact of sects on family life, vocational success or even personal happiness. However, in seeking help from the state, the Church had put itself in a precarious position, since the Church’s stance against the tolerant religious attitudes of the Second Polish Republic could have been perceived as nostalgia for the Prussian times and thus anti-patriotic. The principled position of the Catholic Church, as well as a desire to exclude other sects and the members of religious minorities from the Catholic ecclesiastical authority, created a precedent that promoted religious — and, in consequence, also social — intolerance. The right to a monopoly on spreading their ideology was a source of tension; however, that did not stop the process of social integration.

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