ABSTRACT
After his election, Stanisaw Poniatowski adopted ‘August’ into his regnal name, signalling his intention, in the manner of Augustus, the renovator of the Roman world, to renew the Commonwealth. His was, indeed, the most important contribution to the processes which enabled a politically non-existent Poland to survive its stolen nineteenth century. But his activities also precipitated the very events which he most feared and which he was powerless to avert. Later generations have castigated him for failing to be the Nietzschean Superman who should have made his country a great European power. Even before his reign ended, men who should have known better were making him a scapegoat for the deficiencies of the n aród szlachecki. He had his weaknesses. Irresolution and cowardice have not been the least of the failings attributed to him. Had he been able to count on the support of his subjects, or even of many of his supposed friends and supporters his reputation might have been different. Whether the outcome for Poland would have been different is a moot point. Historians writing after the end of the Second World War, themselves the often disillusioned victims of harsh political realities, have done something to rehabilitate him, but it is unlikely that he will ever cease to suffer for the sins of his subjects.
