Uwagi na marginesie książki Michała Zbigniewa Dankowskiego Liberum veto. Chluba czy przekleństwo? Zrywanie sejmów w ocenach społeczeństwa drugiej połowy XVII wieku. Gdynia: Czarny Gryf, 2018 – Toruń: Jagiellońskie Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 2019.

The article examines an early Polish parliamentary institution that continues to be assessed very negatively: the liberum veto. Michał Zbigniew Dankowski addresses this issue in his monograph, in which he adopts a highly critical stance toward the nobility. In his opinion, the decline of parliamentarism resulted from the nobility’s diminishing civic awareness, political culture, and personal responsibility. On the one hand, the primary figure responsible for establishing the liberum veto, the nuncio from Upita, Władysław Siciński, is portrayed in an extremely negative light. On the other hand, however, Dankowski attempts to justify his actions. In this article, I challenge the arguments presented in Dankowski’s book, asserting that it does not constitute an in-depth study of the liberum veto or the reasons for its entrenchment in the noblemen’s minds as the most powerful guarantee of freedom of speech.