Oxford History of Poland-Lithuania: A Round-table Discussion

The Lithuanian Embassy and UCL SSEES welcome you to a round-table discussion to mark the publication of  Oxford History of Poland-Lithuania: The Making of the Polish-Lithuanian Union, 1385–1569 by Professor Robert Frost.

Discussants:

• Professor John Robertson (University of Cambridge)
• Professor Richard Butterwick-Pawlikowski (UCL SSEES)
• Professor Darius Baronas (Vilnius University and Lithuanian Institute of History)
• Chaired by Dr Giedre Mickunaite (Jagiellonian Project Research Associate, University of Oxford)

This event marks the first full account in English of the making of one of the longest-lasting political unions in European history within a comparative framework. Robert Frost will begin with a brief introduction to the book, outlining why he wrote it, and the main ideas behind it. He will argue that the Polish-Lithuanian union reveals much about the nature of composite states in early modern Europe, and will explore what the story might contribute to the study of political unions in general.

Professor John Robertson will then discuss the European context, Professor Richard Butterwick-Pawlikowski and Dr Darius Baronas will consider the Polish-Lithuanian dimension. There will be a general discussion followed by a drinks reception.

Register your place now on Eventbrite: 

Robert Frost holds the Burnett Fletcher Chair in History at the University of Aberdeen. 

He was educated at the University of St Andrews, the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, and the School of Slavonic & East European Studies of the University of London. He taught at King’s College London until 2004, when he moved to Aberdeen. He has published After the Deluge: Poland-Lithuania and the Second Northern War (1993) and The Northern Wars: War, State and Society in Northeastern Europe, 1558-1721 (2005), which won the Early Slavic Studies Association Prize (2005). The Making of the Polish-Lithuanian Union, 1385-1569 is the first part of a two-volume study of the Polish-Lithuanian Union to be published by Oxford University Press.

Richard Butterwick-Pawlikowski is Professor of Polish-Lithuanian History at UCL SSEES. 

Educated at Cambridge, the Jagiellonian University in Kraków and Oxford, he taught at the Queen’s University of Belfast before moving to UCL-SSEES. He is currently on leave, allowing him to hold the European Civilization Chair at the College of Europe at Natolin, Warsaw. Among his publications are the monographs Poland’s Last King and English Culture: Stanislaw August Poniatowski 1732-1798 (OUP, 1998) and The Polish Revolution and the Catholic Church, 1788-1792 (OUP, 2012), and the edited volumes The Polish-Lithuanian Monarchy in European Context, c. 1500-1795 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2001) and Peripheries of the Enlightenment (Voltaire Foundation, 2008).

John Robertson is Professor of the History of Political Thought at Clare College, University of Cambridge.

His scholarly interests cover political, social and historical thought across the 17th and 18th centuries. His study of the Enlightenment in Scotland and Naples reconstructed the different social and intellectual contexts of Enlightenment in the two kingdoms, the better to understand their common intellectual concern with the history of sociability and the development of political economy. He is now working on the conceptualisation of sociability in between c.1650 and 1800, and on the ways in which sacred history was used as a resource for addressing the problem, alongside natural law.  A major dimension of the subject is the changing agenda of sacred history in Catholic Europe. 

Darius Baronas is Professor at Vilnius University and Research Fellow at the Lithuanian Institute of History. 

For his work on late medieval history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania related to Christianisation and Church history he was co-opted Academician of the Lithuanian Catholic Academy of Science (2015). Author of several books and many articles he has recently co-authored (with S. C. Rowell) a monograph The Conversion of Lithuania: From Pagan Barbarians to Late Medieval Christians (2015).