“I would rather have frigidam than nullam religionem”. Jerzy and Krzysztof Zbaraski towards recatolicisation and change of the system of government in the Polish-Lithuanian ; „Wolę mieć religionem frigidam niż nullam”. Jerzy i Krzysztof Zbarascy wobec rekatolicyzacji i zmiany systemu rządów w Rzeczypospolitej za Zygmunta III Wazy ; “And would rather have been frigidam than nullam religionem”. Jerzy and Krzysztof Zbaraski towards recatolicisation and change of the system of government in the Polish-Lithuanian; ‘Free to have religion with frigidam than nullam’. Jerzy and Krzysztof Zbarascy against the recatolicisation and change of governance in the Republic of Zygmunta III Waza

Republic under Sigismund III Vasa The purpose of the article is to present an attitude of Jerzy and Krzysztof Zbaraski towards the denominational policy and changes in the political system under King Sigismund III Vasa – an issue that has been marginalised in the literature on the subject which focusses mainly on political factography. The article is based on two contemporary pamphlets published anonymously, but attributed to Jerzy Zbaraski, and on letters and texts of the two Zbarskis preserved in manuscript. I argue that the oppositional attitude of the princes towards the monarch and the court party, and especially toward the Jesuit Order, did not stem from the jobbery of the princes but was a result of their beliefs as typical Catholics-politicians and of their late-humanistic intellectual formation, while their political activity, republican in spirit, was of a programmatic character, very much contradictive to the – prevailing both at the Polish court and in the whole contemporary Europe – absolutist tendencies in political system and attempts at confessionalisation of denominational relations. On the basis of a project of reform by Jerzy Zbaraski (1631), I present his concept of an optimal political system of the Commonwealth in the spirit of republicanism (due to the primacy of the estates in the state government) but not populist one (because he attributed the leading role to senators, contrary to the doctrinal principle of the equality of all noblemen). ; Republic under Sigismund III Vasa The purpose of the article is to present an attitude of Jerzy and Krzysztof Zbaraski towards the denominational policy and changes in the political system under King Sigismund III Vasa – an issue that has been marginalised in the literature on the subject which focusses mainly on political factography. The article is based on two contemporary pamphlets published anonymously, but attributed to Jerzy Zbaraski, and on letters and texts of the two Zbarskis preserved in manuscript. I argue that the oppositional attitude of ...