Between Consensus and Veto : Studies on the History of Parliamentary System in Early Modern Poland

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Early modern Poland-Lithuania is often called as a "Republic of Nobles", because the noble estates elected kings and wielded their power through the parliamentary system, which was consisted of the Diet (sejm) and the local assemblies (sejmiki). Polish "noble democracy" was based on these parliamentary institutions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, in which the nobles attached great importance to the principle of unanimity. Through the sixteenth century Polish parliament functioned relatively well, whereas since the middle of the seventeenth century the parliamentary system, especially the sejm, had been paralyzed because of the "free veto" (liberum veto). In his classical studies on the liberum veto (1918), W1. Konopczynski regarded it as a cause of decline of Polish-Lithuanian state in the eighteenth century. His interpretation has been accepted by many historians until today. However recently some historians regard the "Republic of Nobles" as a "civic society", and shed new light on the early modern Polish parliamentary system.In this research project we attempted to survey the new tendencies of historical research on the parliamentary system and the political culture of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Recent historical studies of political culture are based on concrete studies on the Polish-Lithuanian parliamentary system. Now they have begun to publish new syntheses on representative system in Poland-Lithuania. They include new interpretations and suggestions on the relationship between the central institutions and the local society or the role of the royal authority in the mixed monarchy. The liberum veto is also interpreted as an ultimate institution which could guarantee rights the minority.Results of our research were published in academic journals. In the final report of the project we also added a list of Diets which were summoned in Poland-Lithuania from the end of the fifteenth century to the end of the eighteenth century.