Rzeczpospolita szlachecka była w zasadzie państwem dwóch narodów: szlachty i chłopów. Niniejsze studium będzie się koncentrować na tym drugim "narodzie". Jeden z argumentów na rzecz kierunku analizy to fakt, że zdecydowana większość współczesnych Polaków ma chłopskie korzenie, wobec czego nie jest chyba przesadą stwierdzenie, iż jesteśmy chłopskim społeczeństwem. (fragment tekstu)
EN
This article aims to provide sources of vices of serfs in 18th-century Poland in Hubert Vautrin's L'Observateur en Pologne. Vautrin's comments relating to the Polish countryside have become a subject of analysis because, in spite of the author's deviations from neutrality, he was able to sketch a psychological portrait of serfs. According to Vautrin's relation most negative traits of Polish serfs, such as laziness, passivity, drunkenness, cruelty, greed, jealousy stem from the fact that they are subjected to unlimited, despotic power. Generally speaking, the French Jesuit considers 18th-century Poland as a despotic country of the worst kind. Despotic power is not located in one centre, but separated into several rival aristocratic families and foreign courts. (original abstract)