On Saturday 14 November 2015, Professor Richard BUTTERWICK-PAWLIKOWSKI, Chairholder of the European Civilization Chair at the Natolin (Warsaw) campus of the College of Europe, participated in a public debate at the Royal Castle of Warsaw, on the origins of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth’s Great Parliament of 1788-1792. The debate was organized by the Society of the Descendants of the Great Parliament, and brought together professional historians and lovers of history.
Professor BUTTERWICK-PAWLIKOWSKI's own contribution explained the emancipation from the control of magnates of ordinary noble citizens. He emphasized that among the consequences of this shift in political culture were the conditions necessary for the agreement of the Constitution of 3 May 1791 – Europe’s first modern constitution. But the discursive transformation of these years also helped to consolidate the Commonwealth’s subsequent image as a state fatally undermined by ‘aristocratic anarchy’ and ‘magnate oligarchy’.