Centre for Polish-Lithuanian Studies, Aberdeen

Description

The Centre for Polish-Lithuanian Studies conducts research, holds seminars, conferences and workshops, and collaborates with external institutions to promote the study of the union of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from its creation in 1386 and its transformation at the 1569 Union into the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania. The union included at its greatest extent lands that now form the states of Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, and Latvia, and parts of Estonia and Russia. The Centre aims to restore consideration of Poland-Lithuania and its legacy to the mainstream of European history and culture. Its research and teaching agenda encompass not just the history of the union down to the partitions, but also its historical, social, and cultural legacies, all of which are evident across its former lands to the present day. The Centre is dedicated to challenging the national perspectives that have often bedevilled studies of the union. It therefore embraces the different perspectives of all the nations that formed it and contributed to its republican, consensual political culture. It is concerned not only with the positive sides of the union and its legacy, but examines the considerable problems that afflicted it during and after its existence, problems that have at times had serious consequences for relations between the union’s successor states. It will therefore devote as much attention to the union’s legacy since it was partitioned out of existence at the end of the eighteenth century as it does to study of the union itself. Finally, the Centre will consider the relevance of the Polish-Lithuanian union, a multilevel, multiethnic, and religiously plural political union, whose experience raises serious general questions concerning modern consensual democratic and multilateral political systems.