Postawy liderów stronnictwa królewskiego podczas kampanii sejmikowej w województwach krakowskim i sandomierskim w 1782 r.

Abstract

Political life in the Commonwealth in 1782 was dominated by the issue of the incapacitation of Kajetan Sołtyk, Bishop of Cracow. This thread dominated the campaign preceding the parliamentary sejmiks scheduled for August 19. In the article, I analyze the actions taken in the era of the so-called Soltyk crisis by the leaders of King Stanislaw August’s party in the provinces of Krakow and Sandomierz. In the former, the monarch relied primarily Piotr Małachowski (from 1782, Kraków voivode), while in the latter he relied on Maciej Sołtyk (from 1774, Sandomierz voivode). The sejmiks there belonged to the so-called upper sejmiks, and as a result, the position they held was important from the point of view of the rivalry between the court and the opposition. During the 1782 sejmik campaign, P. Malachowski found himself in a particularly difficult position, as a large part of the local nobility voted for “their” bishop. In turn, M. Soltyk had to take into account the fact that he was related to the imprisoned K. Soltyk. In the text I draw attention to the attitudes taken by the leaders of the royal party during this sensitive period and the strategies they chose to influence the nobility. According to the court’s intentions, they were supposed to bring about the election of deputies sympathetic to the monarch and, which in this case was probably more important, to ensure that the sejmic instructions from their provinces did not include any point concerning K. Soltyk’s case. [Translated by Stefan Kubiak]