Why are you a historian of the 18th-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth?
The coincidence of an interest in the Enlightenment and Polish ancestry. The illumination of a doomed republic proved compelling.
What’s the most important lesson history has taught you?
We shouldn’t make it up to suit ourselves.
Which history book has had the greatest influence on you?
Derek Beales’ Joseph II.
What book in your field should everyone read?
Adam Mickiewicz’ Pan Tadeusz: The Last Foray in Lithuania (1834), translated by Bill Johnston (2018).
Which moment would you most like to go back to?
The première of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro in Vienna in 1786.
Which historian has had the greatest influence on you?
Emanuel Mateusz Rostworowski, who died just before I could meet him.
Which person in history would you most like to have met?
Tadeusz Kościuszko.
How many languages do you have?
Native English, fluent Polish, reasonable French, rusty German and Italian, rustier Latin, a bit of Lithuanian and Russian.
What is the most common misconception about your field?
That ‘anarchic’ and ‘fanatical’ Poland was partitioned by its more ‘enlightened’, ‘tolerant’ absolutist neighbours: Russia, Prussia, and Austria.
What historical topic have you changed your mind on?
I now think that in the undeclared Russo-Polish war of 1792 direct negotiations were achievable and King Stanisław August’s capitulation was premature.
Who is the most underrated person in history…
Æthelflæd of Mercia.
… and the most overrated?
Julius Caesar.
Is there an important historical text you have not read?
I’ve been meaning to read Tacitus’ Histories for a long time.
What’s your favourite archive?
The Vatican Apostolic Archive.
What’s the best museum?
The Wallace Collection, London.
What technology has changed the world the most?
The plough.
Recommend us a historical novel…
Robert Harris’ trilogy on Cicero.
… and a historical drama?
Stanisław Wyspiański’s The Wedding (Wesele, 1901, film by Andrzej Wajda, 1972).
You can solve one historical mystery. What is it?
Alfred the Great’s comeback in 878.
Richard Butterwick-Pawlikowski is Professor of Polish-Lithuanian History at UCL and Principal Historian of the Polish History Museum in Warsaw. His latest book is Lithuania: A History (Hurst, 2025).
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