Dorota Wiśniewska1; 1 University of Wrocław, Poland
Discussion
This paper explores foreign portrayals of elite women’s political agency in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth between 1750 and 1830. It asks in which contexts women appear in foreign men’s writings, and what factors contributed to their perception of women as particularly capable, influential, or visible in the public sphere. The sources include reports by French and Saxon diplomats resident in Warsaw as well as travel accounts of visitors to Polish lands. The evidence indicates that women’s effectiveness in politics depended not only on aristocratic birth and wealth, but above all on reputation. Those described as respected, loyal, trustworthy, discreet, and intelligent could emerge as indispensable confidantes and intermediaries of leading statesmen. By contrast, women aligned with political factions opposed to the author’s interests were often portrayed as manipulative or dangerously intriguing — labels also applied to men considered insufficiently committed or openly hostile to the same cause. The paper argues that reputation operated as a decisive currency of power, enabling certain women to wield political influence in a system formally dominated by men.
