Die Tradition einer multinationalen Reichs-geschichte in Mitteleuropa - Historiographische Konzepte gegenüber Altem Reich und Polen-Litauen sowie komparatistische Perspektiven

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Abiejų Tautų Respublika (ATR; Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów; Žečpospolita; Sandrauga; Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth); Abiejų Tautų Respublika (ATR; Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów; Žečpospolita; Sandrauga; Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth); Daugiatautiškumas; Istoriografija; Lenkija-Lietuva; Lyginamieji tyrimai; Vidurio Europa; Šventoji Romos imperija; Central Europe; Comparative Studies; Historiography; Holy Roman Empire; Multinationality; Poland-Lithuania; Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

ENThe present article introduces the reader into the comparison of the early modern imperial Systems of the "Old Reich" and Poland-Lithuania. It focuses on two aspects: Firstly, it contrasts the historiographical concepts of the German and Polish titular nations in order to illustrate the different approaches and revisions of imperial histories. Secondly, it names comparative aspects and analyzes examples, which - contrary to the older "Sonderweg" discussions - give evidence for a categorial comparability of the two imperial Systems. The fact that there has so far been no attempt to make a comparative study of the two imperial Systems has mainly historiographical reasons: While in Germany throughout the 19th and in the first half of the 20th Century the early modern history of the Reich was remembered as a history of decline, Poland evaluated and adapted the early modern Commonwealth in a Republican sense. At the same time, there was little mutual reception between German and Polish research on imperial structures. German research on the Reich is traditionally focused on Western and Southern Europe, as well as the West and South West German territories, whereas Polish research on early modern history does not conceive the Old Reich as a unity and since 1989 has more strongly focused on Lithuania, White Russia and the Ukraine.The following comparative aspects may be suggested: 1) the imperial structures in both unions, especially the Imperial Diet and the Sejm as the central institutions to take political decisions, 2) the feudal formations of both empires which fostered amorphous structures, loose subdivisions and renewable memberships, 3) the contemporary terminology, which made use of the words "Reich" and "respublica" for both unions, 4) the military System, which made both unions more prone to a defensive policy (including the successful repulse of the Turks), 5) the lack of compression in a common foreign policy, which was substituted by the Habsburg and the Saxonian diplomacy respectively, and, finally, 6) partial modernizations in the late 15th and 16th centuries, as well as the "imperial crises" in the wars of the 17th Century. Two examples serve to illustrate the perspectives of this notion of a comparative approach: On the one hand, an analysis of the imperial reform movement in the Old Reich and the executionist movement within the Polish Crown; on the other hand, a description of the forms of a central Jurisdiction (the Imperial Chamber of Justice and the Imperial Court and the Polish and Lithuanian Crown Tribunal), which in both unions contributed to a gradual Integration and the development of coherent stages of appeal. [From the publication]