Baczko, Rousseau and Polish Republicanism

Abstract

This article deals with Bronislaw Baczko’s interpretation of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Considerations on the Government of Poland. Starting from an in-depth knowledge of secondary literature and Polish sources, including the dossier provided to Rousseau by Count Michal Wielhorski, the author shows how Baczko succeeded in offering an innovative reading of this text of Rousseau, understood not so much as an attempt to apply the theories of the Social Contract to Polish reality, but as an encounter of idées-forces, images and social dreams, an encounter based on the reciprocity of an exchange that affects the interlocutors, the conservative Polish nobility and the theorist of popular sovereignty. The Poles will be inspired by Rousseau in their republican claims and Rousseau, in contact with Polish republicanism, changes his own thinking, giving a new meaning to the notions of people and nation.