Professor Richard BUTTERWICK-PAWLIKOWSKI, Chairholder of the EP Geremek European Civilization Chair at the Natolin (Warsaw) campus of the College of Europe, presented a paper at a conference entitled "Culture and Union. A Comparison of the British/Irish and the Polish-Lithuanian unions, 1386–1863".
The conference was organized by Professors Robert FROST and Michael BROWN of the University of Aberdeen at The Burn, Edzell, Aberdeenshire. It took place on 5-7 September 2014 – shortly before the Scottish referendum on independence.
Historians, art historians, legal historians and literary scholars based in Scotland, England, Ireland, Poland, the USA and Canada gathered to debate the role of culture in processes of convergence and divergence between partners in Unions. Professor BUTTERWICK-PAWLIKOWSKI’s paper was entitled "The End of the Union: Poland-Lithuania, Political Reform and the Partitions". He emphasized that the Polish-Lithuanian Union was a going concern, with great potential for the future, on the eve of its dismemberment by Russia, Prussia and Austria in 1792-95.