Geography schoolbooks and compendia and their authors in the process of modernization in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of the 18th century

The article describes the processes connected with geography becoming an independent research fi eld in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of the 18th century along with the manner in which the phenomenon was refl ected in the content of geography schoolbooks and compendia. A natural consequence of this process was the appearance of geography as a separate subject in the school curricula in the second half of the 18th century. The increasing signifi cance of geography was refl ected in the attitude of the authors of the compendia, who underlined the importance of geography perceived not only as a research fi eld, but also as a subject of study indispensable in the educational process. Th e authors emphasized the popularity of publications devoted to geographical issues in the society of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Students and readers had at their disposal books written by Polish geographers and books of foreign authors translated into Polish. Authors of the majority of geography books were mostly clergymen – Jesuits and Piarists; few were books written by secular authors. Th e message transmitted in such books may be considered in two ways: as a kind of educational discourse and as a cultural message connected with the needs of the educated strata of Old Polish society. In the discourse of geography books created in the first half of the 18th century there may be traced visible references to rhetoric and history. It was not until the 1780s that references to the achievements of the geography of the Enlightenment period appeared. Representatives of this trend was a Jesuit Karol Wyrwicz; a similar model was applied by Franciszek Siarczyński, Ignacy Giecy, Antoni Mikucki, Michał Siekierzyński. Consequently, one may notice a signifi cant modernization of the content of geography books, which led to the formation of geography as an independent fi eld of study with its own conceptual apparatus and research problems