Auf Station in Herrnhut – Abseits des Zeremoniells. Aus dem Tagebuch des Fürsten Stanisław Poniatowski (1754–1833)

In the heyday of the European Enlightenment, Prince Stanisław Poniatowski, the nephew of the Polish King, travelled through German lands for three months in 1784. During his journey, he visited a number of the principal centres of the European Enlightenment where he met leading intellectual figures of the day: monarchs, chief administrators, scholars and artists, as well as promoters of commerce and technology. He noted his daily observations in a travel diary published in Poland only in 2002. This article discusses the enlightened viewpoint of the observer expressed during his many meetings and conversations and reflected in his writing. It is read against a background of continuing change in social relations and forms of symbolic and intellectual communication. One place he visited was famous for its particular mode of social, religious and economic organization: the Moravian community at Herrnhut. The Moravians, a Protestant Church, were well-known for their efficient estate management, international contacts and missionary work. Th e Prince was hoping to obtain substantial loans from the Moravians and to hire labour, especially skilled, for the Tyzenhauz manufactories in Lithuania. Even though he did not obtain either, he was a keen observer, noting any detail of possible use. His conversations with the Moravians reveal his tolerant views on religious practice. Although one might expect a man of his standing to insist on being received, as regards ceremonial aspects, in accordance with his rank, few remarks on such symbolic communication are found in his diary. His journal is a representative example of the values of the encyclopaedists; a key part of the Enlightenment. Poniatowski’s diary is therefore also to be read as an illustration of an evolving concept of social order, from a Baroque sense of ‘natural law’ to a functional view characteristic of the Enlightenment.