"Citizenship and Identity in a Multinational Commonwealth: Poland-lithuania ..." ed. by K. Friedrich, B. M. Pendzich

This volume seeks to address the doubts harboured by the West about the ability of East Central European states to build modern democracies and tolerant societies after the expansion of the European Union eastwards.

The tradition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is thereby often overlooked in favour of the nationalist romanticism and xenophobia of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, which arose from the specific context of the partitions of 1772-95. Yet citizenship in a multi-national context was a central theme of the political debate in early modern Poland-Lithuania. For many contemporary religious and national conflicts, this Commonwealth cannot be a direct model for imitation, but may serve as a source of inspiration due to the creative solutions and compromises it negotiated while integrating many faiths and ethnicities.

Contents
Note on Geographic Names
Notes on Contributors
Preface
List of Illustrations
Introduction: Citizenship and Identity in an Early Modern Commonwealth (Karin Friedrich)
PART ONE: INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION: CITIZENSHIP IN THE POLISH-LITHUANIAN COMMONWEALTH
Chapter One. Monarch, Citizens, and the Law under Stefan Batory: The Legal Reform of 1578 (Felicia Rosu)
Chapter Two. Citizenship in the Periphery: Royal Prussia and the Union of Lublin 1569 (Karin Friedrich)
Chapter Three. The Practice of Citizenship among the Lithuanian Nobility, ca. 1580-1630 (Arturas Vasiliauskas)
Chapter Four. Civic Resilience and Cohesion in the Face of Muscovite Occupation (Barbara M. Pendzich)
PART TWO: THE COMMONWEALTH OF MANY NATIONS AND FAITHS
Chapter Five. Identity Formation in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Gershon David Hundert)
Chapter Six. Khmelnytsky's Shadow: The Confessional Legacy (Barbara Skinner)
Chapter Seven. Commonwealth of All Faiths: Republican Myth and the Italian Diaspora in Sixteenth-Century Poland-Lithuania (Joanna Kostylo)
PART THREE: NOTIONS OF CITIZENSHIP: THE EUROPEAN DIMENSION
Chapter Eight. 'County Republicans' and the Concept of Active Citizenship in Sixteenth-Century Poland and France (James B. Collins)
Chapter Nine. The Hidden Commonwealth: Poland-Lithuania and Scottish Political Discourse in the Seventeenth Century (Allan Macinnes)
Chapter Ten. Freedom, State and "National Unity" in Lord Acton's Thought (Krzysztof Lazarski)
Glossary
Bibliography