XVIII amžiaus studijos / The Eighteenth Century Studies

This article uses the last wills and testaments of 18th-century Vilnius burghers to analyse the degree of attention they paid to the education of their children, presenting their attitudes to this issue prior to the establishment of the Commission of National Education and after 1773. The author attempts to gain insight to the changes that occurred and to assess whether Enlightenment ideas and the founding of the Commission of National Education had an influence on the attitudes of Vilnius’ inhabitants on the education of their offspring, and whether the last wills and testaments from the last quarter of the 18th century dedicated more attention to children’s education.

The handwritten diary of Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł (1702–1762), also known as Rybeńko, a source familiar to researchers dealing with the history of the 18th century in various fields, is certainly extremely interesting. The diary is kept in the Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw (Archiwum Główny Akt Dawnych w Warszawie, AGAD) in the Radziwiłł Archive collection (section VI, sign. II-80). Rybeńko was one of the richest magnates of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the time, and this is evidenced by the numerous and extensive estates he owned in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. He owned about 20 towns, and more than 300 villages, which he inherited from his father and from his father-in-law Janusz Antoni Wiśniowiecki. In view of the above, and concerning the fact that Michal Kazimierz Radziwiłł held one of the highest senatorial offices (from 1744 he was governor of Vilnius, so he was formally in charge of the city that he knew well), did he include information about the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the pages of his diary? Being a politically active man who was in possession of such extensive estates, he was constantly on the road (pursuing at the same time a variety of political, economic and social goals), which both his wives complained about. He stayed in many cities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, including the capital of Lithuania. Therefore, this article has been written with the intention of presenting the diary as a source for researching one of the most important centres of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at that time. An attempt is made to consider the circumstances in which entries appear in the diary, whether the prince visited the city regularly or only occasionally, and whether the entries in the diary are systematic reports, or if they are ‘second hand’ information. Finally, the question should be raised as to what type of data was recorded by Rybeńko in the context of Vilnius, and to what extent it can be useful in the study of the city’s history. It also seems crucial to consider the question of what image of the Lithuanian capital emerges from the governor’s records.

In 1772, the first partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth occurred. A few outraged English and French pamphleteers grabbed a pen to defend its cause. The same year, John Lind released his Letters Concerning the Present State of Poland. In 1773, Simon Linguet published his Considérations politiques et philosophiques, sur les affaires présentes du Nord, et plus particulièrement sur celles de Pologne. In 1775, the Marquis de Caraccioli released La Pologne telle qu’elle a été, telle qu’elle est, telle qu’elle sera. This article aims at defining how these authors’ reactions to the first dismemberment of the Commonwealth contributed to the nascence of public opinion in the last quarter of the 18th century, thus accelerating the advent of a shared sentiment of European membership. The study is intended as a contribution to our knowledge of the reception in European public opinion of the partition of Poland-Lithuania. The article encompasses: I) the emergence of public opinion in 18th-century Britain and France; II) Caraccioli, Linguet and Lind: three different personalities devoted to the same cause; III) combating prejudices: Restoring the truth on serfdom in the Commonwealth, and the dissidents affair; IV) ensuring support for a king struggling alone against hostile neighbouring powers.

In Catholic canon law, the terms used to refer to the sexual disorders causing difficulties in marriage were “impotence” (Lat. impotentia) or “frigidity” (Lat. frigiditas). These terms, although not gendered, were nevertheless most often used to describe men’s physiological problems. In the Catholic consistories of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, impotence-related cases were perhaps the rarest category of all marital litigation. In the surviving sources of the seventeenth-eighteenth-century ecclesiastical courts, it was possible to find data on ten such cases, of which seven were examined. Due to the scarcity and chronological inconsistency of the data drawing generalising conclusions is problematic, nonetheless, it is possible to observe certain trends and to reveal aspects that are relevant from the point of view of micro-history.All bar one of the cases involved male impotence, and five out of seven resulted in the decisions declaring the marriages null and void. The analysis of case materials clearly reveals an aspect of publicity characteristic of this type of cases that had evolved in canon law since the Middle Ages, namely, third-party inspections. It was the expert insights of women or doctors that had a decisive influence on the decisions on whether to annul the marriage or to order the spouses to stay in it. This rather unwanted limelight may have precluded many of the cases from ever reaching the courts.

The article deals with the patronage of art by the Radvila women of the Nesvizh-Olyka branch of the family. It is seen as a complex organisational process that involved not only clients but also intermediaries. The aim is to reveal the typical roles of female patrons, identify the areas of art they supported the most, and assess the individual contribution of women. Research into the women’s activities during the Wettin period helps to reveal an important and still underestimated aspect of the social history of art in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: the importance of family ties and cooperation in art commissions. The women often acted as intermediaries for their spouses and mother, Ona Sanguškaitė-Radvilienė. Compared to Western European countries, in the eighteenth century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania had a poorly developed network of art agents and specialised art dealers. Therefore family ties and women’s mediation were crucial both in the hiring of artists and in the control of their work.