Image of Prussia of the Polish Enlightenment - the history of a forgotten cultural transfer (1764 - 1795)

• Applicant: Privatdozentin Dr. Agnieszka Pufelska
• Subject Area: Early Modern History
• Term: from 2010 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 150120830

The Enlightenment of the 18th century is considered genuinely as pan-European project. In fact, Enlightenment is still examined as Western European spirit flow and in the context of Western European developments of the early modern period. The present project aims to break this dominance of the Western European perspective and to propose the counter-narrative to the standard interpretation of the Age of Enlightenment. The research methodology is based on the concept of cultural transfer, an approach that has proven fruitful in transfer and comparative studies in recent years. An example of Polish-Prussian cultural transfer in the outgoing 18th century will be examine how the mutual relations developed in the face of the indisputable repressive Poland's politics of neighbor Prussia and which role this transfer played in the enlightened discourse in Europe. Starting from this question the project is attempting to criticize the previous tradition of historiography - understood as equivalent to the Exclusion Poland from the German or Prussian enlightened research- and to examine the history of Prussian-Polish relations during the Enlightenment closely, uninhibited by national stereotypes.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants