This paper discusses the main characteristics of elective monarchy in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth while comparing and contrasting it with other early modern European examples. No other early... Show moreThis paper discusses the main characteristics of elective monarchy in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth while comparing and contrasting it with other early modern European examples. No other early modern polity organized elections on the scale of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. More people, more time, and more explicit regulations were involved in its elections than in those of any other country. Seen in this light, the Commonwealth may appear as a north-eastern European sonderweg. Yet the Polish-Lithuanian version of elective monarchy was not a unique invention, but rather a particularly strong manifestation of republican and constitutionalist trends that also affected many other parts of late medieval and early modern Europe. The most striking elements that characterized it—non-dynastic succession and conditional rulership—could also be found elsewhere, albeit in weaker versions: Transylvania and Hungary; Bohemia, Sweden, and Denmark. But even if the traits of the Polish-Lithuanian elective system, taken separately, differed from the rest of Europe more by degree than essence, there is no question that the combination of all its traits put together resulted in a remarkable package that cannot be found elsewhere as such. Show less
This paper discusses the diplomatic career of a Jesuit whose political acumen and militant understanding of mission went to loggerheads with imperial, papal, and even Jesuit interests in... Show moreThis paper discusses the diplomatic career of a Jesuit whose political acumen and militant understanding of mission went to loggerheads with imperial, papal, and even Jesuit interests in northeastern Europe. Antonio Possevino (1533-1611) was a priest, writer, and administrator who served as the superior of the Jesuit mission in Sweden and the pope’s extraordinary legate to Muscovy, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Holy Roman Empire between 1577 and 1587. Like any high-ranking Jesuit, Possevino had dreams of global evangelization, but the means he envisaged for attaining them were predominantly political and military. During his diplomatic career he became so enmeshed in local politics that he was accused of partiality to the Polish-Lithuanian king, whose envoy he effectively became on several occasions. At the request of the imperial court, who perceived him as hostile to their interests, and despite Possevino’s efforts to prove his impartiality, his superiors dismissed him from his diplomatic activities. Exiled in Italy, far from high-level politics, Possevino remained involved with northeastern Europe, but only behind the scenes or under the cover of a pseudonym. His story illustrates the multiple identities and uneasy but inevitable mixture of politics and religion in early modern Catholic diplomacy. Show less
