ABSTRACT
In the eighteenth century, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a state whose political system had solidified over several centuries. Contemporary historians define it as a mixed monarchy, founded on an almost perfect balance between the king and his subjects. Disturbing this balance posed the threat of royal absolutism were the monarch to gain an advantage, or of oligarchy, were political life to become dominated by the great magnate families, or of anarchy, were nobles to won unlimited power over the state. The mixed monarchy, which assumed its final shape in the sixteenth century, was a guarantee of the nobility’s rights and position in the state. It was treated by the ‘political nation’ (nobles) as the pupil of liberty (pupila libertatis). Political institutions such as the parliament, free elections and the independent judiciary ensured the stability of the political and legal system and of the political tradition within the state. In the first half of the eighteenth century, this system underwent a deep crisis, something Polish nobles acknowledged and even tried to repair, but the weakening of the Commonwealth’s international power and position made political reforms completely impossible, eventually leading to Poland’s disappearance from the map of Europe in 1795.
