Translating Toleration: Concepts, Texts, and Intermediaries between Poland and Protestant Germany (1645-1795)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Alexander Schunka
• Subject Area: Early Modern History
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 465093384

Religious toleration has been either praised or cursed as a road to modernity: in western Europe born from the minds of intellectuals who considered religious differences insignificant, in eastern Europe rooted in the practical coexistence of different religions and beliefs. In order to overcome this gap between a “Western theoretical approach” and an “Eastern practical approach”, our project will examine toleration among Christian denominations as a subject, product, and effect of ‘cultural translation’ between two neighboring European regions, Poland-Lithuania and Brandenburg-Prussia (1645–1795). By analyzing manuscripts and printed sources, we will investigate concepts of toleration in these regions. The proposed project will focus on diplomacy, the public sphere, and Polish-German intermediaries. Our goal is to demonstrate that phenomena of toleration developed through interaction and cultural exchange. On one hand, we will show how political, economic, and ideological motives contributed to the creation of concepts of “tolerant” or “intolerant” states. On the other hand, we will reveal the potential of political agency as driven by concepts of toleration and their proponents. Our project applies a methodology of cultural translation. We understand ‘translation’ as a practice that encompasses more than linguistic aspects. It includes the adaptation and modification of texts, ideas, and actions in a broader sense. By avoiding an essentialist concept of toleration, we highlight historical understandings of toleration, the evolution and production of concepts of “tolerant Protestant states”, and the impact of these understandings on different regions and social contexts.This project offers a new view of the history of religious ideas. We intend to shed new light on the genesis of concepts of toleration that contributed to the formation of important values in modern societies. This is the first attempt to address the history of toleration discourses in a Polish-German setting within early modern religious thought and practice. Moreover, this project will contribute to a broader awareness that for many centuries Poland and Germany were integral parts of a united cultural space, a fact that still must be established more solidly in current and future historical research as well as for the non-academic public.This project benefits from the complementary expertise of scholars who have published widely on forms of toleration and confessional dialogue in Poland and East Central Europe (Ptaszyński) as well as in Central and Western Europe (Schunka). The close cooperation of two research teams, located in Berlin and in Warsaw, will enable us to conduct research in parallel, and to collaborate on the dissemination of results. This collective research enterprise aims to be the nucleus of further collaboration in the field of early modern religious history between Warsaw and Berlin.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Poland
• Partner Organisation: Narodowe Centrum Nauki (NCN)
• Cooperation Partners: Dr. Jacek Kordel; Professor Dr. Maciej Ptaszynski