Golden Liberty

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The Republic at the Zenith of Its Power. Golden Liberty. The Royal Election of 1573, by Jan Matejko

Golden Liberty (

extensive legal rights and privileges. The nobility controlled the legislature (the Sejm—the parliament) and the Commonwealth's elected king
.

Development

This political system, unique in Europe, stemmed from the consolidation of power by the

Pacta conventa
) that no monarch could hope to break the szlachta's grip on power.

The political doctrine of the Commonwealth of the Two Nations was "our state is a republic under the presidency of the King".

pacta conventa
negotiated at the time of his election.

The monarch's power was limited, in favour of the sizable noble class. Each new king had to subscribe to King Henry's Articles, which were the basis of Poland's political system and included almost unprecedented guarantees of

senators. The doctrine had ancient republican thought at its roots, which was then reapplied with varying success to an elective monarchy's political reality.[2]

The foundation of the Commonwealth's political system, the "Golden Liberty" (Polish: Złota Wolność, a term used from 1573), included the following:

  • the election of the king by all nobles wishing to participate, known as wolna elekcja (free election)
  • Sejm, the Commonwealth parliament, which the king was required to hold every two years
  • King Henry's Articles
  • insurrection
    ), the right of szlachta to form a legal rebellion against a king who violated their guaranteed freedoms
  • religious freedom guaranteed by Warsaw Confederation Act 1573[3]
  • liberum veto (Latin), the right of an individual land envoy to oppose a decision by the majority in a Sejm session; the voicing of such a "free veto" nullified all the legislation that had been passed at that session; during the crisis of the second half of the 17th century, Polish nobles could also use the liberum veto in provincial sejmiks
  • confederatio
    ), the right to form an organization to force through a common political aim

The Commonwealth's political system is difficult to fit into a simple category, but it can be tentatively described as a mixture of these:

  • autonomy
    of its regions. It is, however, difficult to decisively call the Commonwealth either confederation or federation, as it had some qualities of both of them
  • oligarchy,[4] as only the male szlachta, around 15% of the population, had political rights
  • democracy, as all of the szlachta were equal in rights and privileges, and the Sejm could veto the king on important matters, including legislation (the adoption of new laws), foreign affairs, declaration of war and taxation (changes of existing taxes or the levying of new ones). Also, the 10% of Commonwealth population who enjoyed those political rights (the szlachta) were a substantially larger percentage than in any other European country, and the nobles extended from powerful princes to knights poorer than many peasants; in comparison, in France, only about 1% of the population had the right to vote in 1831, and in 1832, in the United Kingdom, only about 14% of male adults could vote
  • elective monarchy, as the monarch, elected by the szlachta, was the head of state
  • pacta conventa
    and other laws, and the szlachta could disobey any of the king's decrees that they deemed to be illegal

Assessment

The "Golden Liberty" was a unique and controversial feature of Poland's political system. It was an exception, characterized by a strong aristocracy and a feeble king, in an age when

authoritarian state.[12]

Perhaps the closest parallels to Poland's 'Noble Democracy' can be found outside Europe altogether, in America, among the

slave-owning aristocracy of Southern United States, where slave-owning democrats and founding fathers of the US, such as Thomas Jefferson or George Washington, had many values in common with the reformist noblemen of the Commonwealth.[13]
However, the comparison is very weak, as the so-called Southern aristocracy was not limited to a hereditary caste; the social structure, based simply on the acquisition (or loss) of wealth and property, was fluid; and there was of course no monarchy or nobility in the United States.

Others however criticize the Golden Liberty, pointing out it was limited only to the nobility, excluding peasants or townsfolk

magnates).[14][17] However, this "the Jewish Paradise, but also Purgatory for the Townsfolk and Hell for the Peasants" was a statement of social satire, and it should be evaluated whether it reflected the fact of the age. A number of Russian peasants fled from their far more brutal lords to settle in liberal Poland,[18]
which might stand out as example of counterevidence to the "Hell for the Peasants" claim.

In its extreme, the Golden Liberty has been criticized as being responsible for "civil wars and invasions, national weakness, irresolution, and poverty of spirit".

bureaucratization) neighbors,[23] becoming a tempting target for foreign aggression. It was eventually partitioned and annexed by stronger absolutist neighboring countries in the late-18th-century partitions of Poland.[10][24]

Similar systems

The Golden Liberty created a state that was unusual for its time, but somewhat similar political systems existed in other contemporary states, like the Republic of Venice.[25] (Both states were styled the "Most Serene Republic".[26])

A similar fate was averted by Italy; first due to a secular inability of the kings of France and Spain, and the Papacy, to come to terms on how to divide the country, then through the reaction against

Habsburg domination which, as late as 1861, finally aligned most of the country's states in support of a national monarchy under King Victor Emmanuel II of the House of Savoy, hitherto king of Sardinia
.

Notably, neither the Republic of Venice nor Italy had a liberum veto among their institutions.

Proverb

The szlachta's rights and privileges became proverbial:

Szlachcic na zagrodzie
równy wojewodzie

—literally,

"The noble on his estate
is equal to the voivode"

or, preserving the Polish original's rhyme scheme:

"The noble behind his garden wall
is the province governor's equal."

To this day, in Poland, this means that a free man (a better sense, today, for szlachcic) regards no man as his superior.

See also

References

  1. ISBN 331911803X
  2. S2CID 141659882
    .
  3. ISBN 0-19-925340-4
  4. ^
    ISBN 0-88706-833-2, Google Print, p13
  5. ^
    ISBN 0-19-925339-0
    , p.262
  6. ^ Frost, Robert I. The Northern Wars: War, State and Society in northeastern Europe, 1558–1721. Harlow, England; New York: Longman's. 2000. Especially pp9–11, 114, 181, 323.
  7. ISBN 963-9241-18-0, Google Print: p3, p12
  8. ISBN 0-19-820654-2, Google print p84
  9. ISBN 0-8223-1802-4, Google Print, p34
  10. ^
    ISBN 0-333-77475-2, Google print p. 11 — constitutional monarchy, p.3 — anarchy
  11. ISBN 0-19-925339-0, Google Print, p.283
  12. ISBN 1-85866-016-5, Press Google Print, p. 46
  13. ISBN 0-19-925339-0
    , p.282
  14. ^
    ISBN 0-521-80330-6, Google Print, p.336
  15. Economic History Review
    30:1 (March), pp18–32
  16. ISBN 0-19-925339-0, Google Print, p.160
  17. ^
    ISBN 0-521-85332-X, Google Print, p.88
  18. ISBN 0-19-512179-1. Googleブック
  19. ISBN 0-8020-9036-2, Google Print, p.150
  20. ISBN 0-19-925339-0
    , p.279]
  21. ISBN 1-4128-0490-6, Google Print, pp42–43
  22. ISBN 0-89526-292-4, Google Print, p.242
  23. ISBN 0-691-02475-8, Google Print, p.144
  24. ISBN 0-521-80756-5 Google Print: p54
  25. ^ Joanna Olkiewicz, Najaśniejsza Republika Wenecka (Most Serene Republic of Venice), Książka i Wiedza, 1972, Warszawa
  26. ISBN 0-521-56163-9, Google Print, p422 (notes)

External links
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