Political Thought on Constitutional Reform in Early Modern Poland

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The aim of this research project is a reconsideration and reinterpretation of Polish political texts in the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century. This study pays special attention to two important political issues in early modern Pland, i.e. 1) the interregnum periods and the royal election, and 2) the defense of frontier and territorial expansion.As to the former question we surveyed the development and change of the royal election in early modern Poland and analyzed the political texts of Lukasz Gornicki, who had criticized the royal election system in the second half of the 16th century. We also studied the political process of the first interregnum after the extinction of the Jagiellonian dynasty (1572-1573). Our study throws light on the relation between the political discoursed on the royal election in this interregnum and the public opinion of the szluchta (the Polish nobles) on the French candidate.On the latter question we dealt the arguments on the eastern expansion of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, especially the texts propagating the colonial expansion into Ukraine. Some publicists in early modern Poland were influenced by the territorial expansions of West European countries and found their own colonial space in Ukraine. This study investigated how the knowledge of New World had spread into Poland and influenced on the political discourses of Polish colonial expansionists.