The Idea of a Free, Sovereign and Independent State – a Phenomenon of the Change of Times of the Four-Year Sejm?

Abstract

The Stanislaus times brought citizens’ reflection on the essence of the Republic. This reflection led to an attempt to reform the state in the times of the Great Sejm. This process in its surface layer we know, but we do not understand how exactly it proceeded. Indeed, what prompted the contemporaries to reflect was the misfortunes that affected the Polish-Lithuanian state. These misfortunes – defined differently – played a greater or lesser role in this process of “rebirth of the nation.” For this change to occur, it had to be made more widely thought about the causes of the country’s weakness. This issue seems crucial in order to understand the essence of the Stanislaus times and their reforms. One can agree with the thesis that this process was started by the elites of the time, including Stanislaw August. However, the ideas of repairing the state to materialize had to find more substantial support, which proved to be the average nobility. This hypothesis, its confirmation, still requires much research. However, many indicate that it led, not so much to the acceptance of the 3 May Constitution but to a situation in which most noble people were ready to accept it. This was decided by a change in the thinking of the noble’s elites about the state’s role, which was accompanied by a change in the hierarchy of internal values, significant in society’s life (which by no means meant abandoning republican ideas). The latter issue is challenging to define, and in this area, the sources are very often declarative – e.g. the value of oaths, declarations of sacrifice for the homeland.