Depictions of the Idea of Justice in Mid-18th Century Poland: On the Conflict over the Ostrogski Estate

Abstract

This article aims to show the interrelation between the visual arts, ceremonials and journalistic opinion pieces in the political propaganda of the Polish-Lithuanian Republic during the reign of King Augustus III, using an example which was of vital importance for the public life of that time – the dispute over the entail of the Ostrogski estate. In the satirical Tragic-Comic Scene, the conclusion of the so-called Kolbuszowa Transaction, sanctioning the division of the estate’s entail, was presented as a parody of the courts then operating in the Republic. The illustrations for Piotr Hadziewicz’s dissertation Prawda obiaśniona… conveyed the message that the unity and order of the state must be based upon the observance of its laws, with the King being the guarantor of the legal order. The king established a special commission, known as the Dubno Commission, which was to assess the legal and factual status related to the division of the Ostrogski estate. The committee members strongly emphasised the legality of their actions. They adopted a ceremonial which was modelled on the ceremonies of the Crown Tribunal, an institution deeply rooted in the Polish legal system of that time. The main actors of the “new Tribunal in Dubno”, as Primate Adam Ignacy Komorowski described the Commission, made sure that a uniform message was sent out to the public: that of the harmonious work by the Commission to restore the legal order in the Republic. This message perfectly corresponded with the content of the illustrations and satire of that period.