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18 | 2021
Versailles et la Pologne

Actes de la journée d’études, 5 mars 2019, Académie polonaise des sciences – Centre scientifique à Paris
Versailles and Poland. Study day proceedings, 5 March 2019, Académie Polonaise des Sciences – Centre Scientifique à Paris
Edited by Maciej Forycki, Katarzyna Anna Kula and Flavie Leroux
Versailles et la Pologne
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Credits: © Bibliothèque municipale de Versailles

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the French and Polish political systems seemed antithetical, with an absolute monarchy on the French side and an elective monarchy, in which the nobility played a central role, on the Polish side. And yet, both kingdoms were connected on several levels, through family ties (at the Château de Lunéville, for example), the movement of people (through marriages, study tours, work) or the circulation of goods (dowries, crafts, commercial trade). Publications edited by Jarosław Dumanowski and Michel Figeac have explored the subject: first in Noblesse française et noblesse polonaise : mémoire, identité, culture, XVIe-XXe siècles (2006), then in Le rayonnement français en Europe centrale du XVIIe siècle à nos jours (with Olivier Chaline, 2009) and finally in France-Pologne : contacts, échanges culturels, représentations, fin XVIe-fin XIXe siècle (with Daniel Tollet, 2016). Exchanges between France and Poland have also been highlighted on the occasion of exhibitions focusing on emblematic figures, such as Marie Leszczyńska, wife of Louis XV (Royal Castle, Warsaw, 2013; Palace of Versailles, 2019), and her father, Stanislaus I, King of Poland (Nancy, Musée Lorrain, 2004–2005 and at the Château de Lunéville, 2016).

This multi-contributor volume, resulting from a workshop held on 5 March 2019 at the Scientific Centre in Paris of the Polish Academy of Sciences, seeks to pursue this work on relationships between France and Poland, focusing on royal and aristocratic courts. The aim is to critically examine the myth of Versailles’ influence in Europe, an idea that was put forward by Louis Réau in the 1930s (L’Europe française au siècle des Lumières, 1938, among other works), and that has since been largely reassessed, in collective works such as Versailles et l’Europe (edited by T. W. Gaehtgens, M. A. Castor, F. Bussmann and C. Henry, 2017). The present publication is a central part of a research programme led by the Centre de Recherche du Château de Versailles about ‘Court Identities and the Myth of Versailles in Europe: Perception, Adherence and Rejections (18th–19th century)’.

What links and exchanges can be detected between French and Polish court structures, in terms of inspiration, adaptation, resistance or rejection? To what extent did royal and aristocratic Polish courts find in Versailles a source of inspiration, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? On what levels? Who and what contributed to this influence or, on the contrary, to its repression? To provide some answers to these questions, the first two parts of this volume examine the movement of persons and individuals travelling from France to Poland and from Poland to France. Cultural transfers are then analysed, as applied to political functioning, court organization and educational practices, and then to gardens and residential architecture up until the twentieth century.

See the the study day programme (PDF).

Organization of the study day: Académie Polonaise des Sciences – Centre Scientifique à Paris and Centre de Recherche du Château de Versailles

Partners: Bibliothèque Polonaise de Paris and Centre de Civilisation Polonaise – Sorbonne Université   

Scientific committee of the study day: Maciej Forycki, Katarzyna Anna Kula and Flavie Leroux

Editor’s notes

Quatorze communications à la journée d’étude sur dix-sept sont publiées.

Correction : Marie-Paule Rochelois
Traductions : Wojciech Gilewski, Yana Kazak, Alexandra Keens, Magdalena Kotowska, Katarzyna Anna Kula, Justyna Nowakowska, Halina Lubicz-Trawkowska, Inga Walc

Date de mise en ligne : 26 avril 2021

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