Prof. Dr. Gábor Gángó

G. W. Leibniz and Eastern Europe. Aspects of power politics and religious policy in practice and theory

Despite its high relevance for the formation of early modern European consciousness, the research topic "Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Eastern Europe" proves to be terra incognita in the otherwise already widely explored life and work of the German polymath and calls for fundamental critical discussion. In order to contribute to the revival of an early work that has so far only been marginally treated, I will prepare a manuscript for a monograph on Leibniz's treatise Specimen Polonorum, written in the service of the candidacy of Count Palatine Philipp Wilhelm von Neuburg for the Polish crown in 1669, during my stay at the Max-Weber-Kolleg. In this way, my work contributes to the Research Centre for Early Modern Natural Law at the Max-Weber-Kolleg.

Until now, the obstacle to a more detailed examination of the Specimen Polonorum has been that research has been in the dark with regard to its context. Therefore, I will combine methodology in the history of ideas and philosophical-historical interpretation with basic source research. During the philological work, I will access Polish archival sources as well as the library estate of Leibniz's mentor Johann Christian von Boineburg in the Erfurt University Library. The source work will enable a comprehensive contextual reconstruction of the genesis of the Specimens Polonorum , which will also allow us to better understand the philosophical-logical approaches of this important early work.

For the contextual work, the pamphlet polemics of the election campaign, in particular the political journalism of Boineburg and his circle, must first be considered. First, I will not only examine Boineburg's Warsaw mission as the electoral envoy of the Count Palatine, but also look behind the scenes of Mainz's daily politics. Re-contextualising Leibniz's pamphlet in the politics of the Electorate of Mainz enables us to see more clearly that, similar to other Leibniz texts of the Mainz years analysed in a far more in-depth manner (from the "Sekuritätsgutachten" to the Consilium Aegyptiacum), the Polish electoral pamphlet is also closely connected to the basic problematic of the politics of the Elector of Mainz, Johann Friedrich von Schönborn, i.e. the French expansion on the Rhine. The peculiarity of the Polish project is that, because of the rapidly changing diplomatic constellations of the War of Devolution, Boineburg (and with him Leibniz) and the Mainz Elector found themselves in opposite camps of the Polish electoral campaign.

On the basis of the understanding of Leibniz's Specimen Polonorum gained in this way, I would like to draw a picture of the young Leibniz that is essentially politically (power-politically, religion-politically, culture-politically) centred: that of a Leibniz who thought more pragmatically and situationally than ethically-state-metaphysically - but by no means only short-sightedly power-oriented. It was intended to make politics in the Mainz period of Leibniz's life appear originally as practice; a practice that proved to be largely in need of justification or explanation in theoretical terms.

Johann Christian von Boineburg in the context of the Republic of Scholars

funded by the Jutta Heidemann Foundation | Link

Baron Johann Christian von Boineburg (1622-1672), the chief court marshal and polyhistor of Mainz, has a good chance of becoming one of the most important rediscovered figures of the early modern republic of scholars. As the latest research shows, his importance as a politician ranged from his influence on Thuringian state affairs to his influence on high imperial politics, as a scientific organizer from his support of the young Leibniz to his involvement in shaping international scholarly communication, and as a scholar from initiating the reception of Grotius in Germany to helping shape the first phase of the early modern European debate on natural law. His afterlife is linked to Erfurt by several threads: his son, Imperial Count Philipp Wilhelm von Boineburg (1656-1717) acted as governor of the city and rector of the university; the library of father and son is one of the few scholarly libraries in early modern Germany that has remained intact. It is now accessible as a special collection of the Erfurt University Library.

After promising initial contributions (such as Paasch 2005, Mulsow 2018), however, a comprehensive, contextualized reconstruction of Boineburg's activities is and remains a desideratum of research. The aim of the present project is to bring together our own case-study-based preliminary work on Boineburg's position in the international republic of scholars in the form of a book publication and to deepen the research questions in the direction of a systematic treatment of his life's work and his intellectual significance.

Here you can access the current list of publications (Stand 05/2024).

MWK-FELLOWS COFUND International Fellowship Programme of the Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies for Experienced Researchers