[Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, 1733-1795: light and flame. Richard Butterwick] : recenzija

ENThe 18th century was a fateful epoch in the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: it was at the end of that century that the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the joint state of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, created in Lublin in 1569, was erased from the world map. Writing the history of an eradicated state is a challenge in itself. A challenge because it demands not only an excellent knowledge of the subject of analysis, the evolution of the state and its society, but also a deep awareness of international relations and geopolitical processes, and also a high degree of professionalism empowering the author to objectively evaluate historiography and sources, not yielding to the preconceived provisions or tendentious assessments that have accompanied the history of the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ever since the epoch of the First Partition. The University College London professor Richard Butterwick, the author of this new synthesis devoted to the 18th-century history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and a famous researcher of the period of the reign of Stanisław August Poniatowski, has handled this task perfectly. We have a new, conceptual book revealing to readers the complex history of the Polish-Lithuanian state, or more precisely its final stage, lit up not just by the bright aura of the Age of Enlightenment, but also ablaze with ideas of freedom, equality, democracy and constitutionalism just before the state was extinguished. It is no accident then that the author chose the subheading ‘Light and Flame’ for his synthesis of the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 18th century. [...]. [Extract, p. 169]