Two Letters of the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania Stanislaus August Poniatowski to Christoph Olendski

Abstract

Abstract. The reforms of state government adopted by the Four-Year Sejm (1788–1792) and the Constitution of May 3, 1791, that crowned these reforms were one of the most significant political events of the united Polish-Lithuanian State in the eighteenth century. The rich historiography of the Four-Year Sejm covers not only the genesis of the reforms, and the content of the adopted transformations, but also their reception in the voivodeships and districts (powiats) of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The nobility’s approval for the fundamental government reforms was expressed in the district’s assemblies (sejmiki) held in February 1792, which went down in history as a referendum on the Constitution of May 3. However, to date, the personal composition of the reform and the group of supporters of the 3 May Constitution and their activities in the different voivodeships and districts of the
Commonwealth have not been sufficiently studied. Also, little is known about the special tasks performed by the king’s chamberlains during the consolidation of the reforms and Constitution. The new archival sources presented in the article reveal the connections of the Samogitian nobleman Christopher Olendski (Krzysztof Olendski, Olędzki) with the faction of the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania Stanisław Augustus Poniatowski in the last decade of the XVIII century and testify to his agitation activities in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Courland in 1791. The composition of the ruler’s group participants in Lithuania is supplemented with a new personality.