Leono Sapiegos politinės grupuotės galios akumuliavimo mechanizmai : Aleksandro Korvino Gosevskio atvejis

ENLeonas Sapieha is the first exceptional personality of the Sapieha family, who has still not yet received the suitable attention of historians. Given the political reality of the Early Modern Period, we have to analyze the chancellor of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) together with his political grouping. We believe that the latter term best fits the situation in which the Commonwealth was at that time, i.e. a non-hierarchical state ruled by noblemen; therefore terms such as clièntele, fraction and similar should be left aside. Sapieha’s political grouping consisted of several elements of which one of the most important was the chancellery of the GDL. Using its correspondence as the main source, and through the reconstruction of the activities of one person (Aleksander Korwin Gosewsky) we have disclosed two important things: first, the early career of Gosewsky himself, his role in the chancellery and his relations with Sapieha; second, the chancellery’s position within the general structure of the grouping. The chancellery was the main source of power for the leader of the grouping, allowing him not only to provide different services to third parties (first and foremost it was providing information from the Lithuanian Metrica), but also to carry out protectionist activities through its office functions. The chancellery was also the communication center of the grouping, through which ties were maintained with all its branches. In a nutshell, this was the basis of Sapieha’s political power and the main tool for carrying out his policies. [From the publication]