Andrzej Maksymilian Fredro (1620–1679) - A theorist of Polish Sarmatism
Andrzej Maksymilian Fredro (1620–1679) - A theorist of Polish Sarmatism

Summary/Abstract: A. M. Fredro disappeared from school textbooks and university courses––and therefore from social memory––in Poland under partitions and in Soviet-occupied Poland (1945–1989). He theorized the modern Polish state and wrote on personal morality, counseling Poles on how to win and how to be virtuous. He disliked tyranny of the mob and tyranny of kings. He was an enthusiast of the republican form of government, similar to what the Founding Fathers originally envisaged for the United States. He made mistakes, but he also exemplified the vigor and wisdom of public debates in seventeenthcentury Poland. The following excerpts have been translated from Latin into Polish, and then from Polish into English. The Polish text can be found in Zbigniew Ogonowski, editor, 700 lat myśli polskiej, Warsaw: PWN, 1979, pp. 317–322, 338–339.

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