Monitor (Polish newspaper) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Monitor was the first newspaper in Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

, printed from 1765 to 1785, during the Polish Enlightenment. It was founded in March 1765 by Ignacy Krasicki

Ignacy Krasicki

Ignacy Krasicki , from 1766 Prince-Bishop of Warmia and from 1795 Archbishop of Gniezno , was Poland's leading Enlightenment poet , a critic of the clergy, Poland's La Fontaine, author of the first Polish novel, playwright, journalist, encyclopedist, and translator from French and...

and Franciszek Bohomolec

Franciszek Bohomolec

Franciszek Bohomolec was a Polish dramatist, linguist, and theatrical reformer who was one of the principal playwrights of the Polish Enlightenment....

, with active support from King Stanisław August Poniatowski. It came out weekly, later semi-weekly. Its title was a tribute to the "small" Monitor published by Prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski.

Inspired by the English Spectator
The Spectator (1711)
The Spectator was a daily publication of 1711–12, founded by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele in England after they met at Charterhouse School. Eustace Budgell, a cousin of Addison's, also contributed to the publication. Each 'paper', or 'number', was approximately 2,500 words long, and the...

and the spirit of rationalism

Rationalism

In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...

and religious tolerance, Monitor has contributed to a negative view of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th‑century Europe with some and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century...

under the Wettin dynasty

Wettin (dynasty)

The House of Wettin is a dynasty of German counts, dukes, prince-electors and kings that once ruled the area of today's German states of Saxony, the Saxon part of Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia for more than 800 years...

. The Monitor advocated reforms and criticized a degenerate Sarmatian

Sarmatism

"Sarmatism" is a term designating the dominant lifestyle, culture and ideology of the szlachta of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from the 16th to the 19th centuries. Together with "Golden Liberty," it formed a central aspect of the Commonwealth's culture...

culture and the abuses of "Golden Liberty

Golden Liberty

Golden Liberty , sometimes referred to as Golden Freedoms, Nobles' Democracy or Nobles' Commonwealth refers to a unique aristocratic political system in the Kingdom of Poland and later, after the Union of Lublin , in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth...

."

Editors:

Franciszek Bohomolec
Franciszek Bohomolec
Franciszek Bohomolec was a Polish dramatist, linguist, and theatrical reformer who was one of the principal playwrights of the Polish Enlightenment....
Ignacy Krasicki
Ignacy Krasicki
Ignacy Krasicki , from 1766 Prince-Bishop of Warmia and from 1795 Archbishop of Gniezno , was Poland's leading Enlightenment poet , a critic of the clergy, Poland's La Fontaine, author of the first Polish novel, playwright, journalist, encyclopedist, and translator from French and...
Wawrzyniec Mitzler de Kolof
Wawrzyniec Mitzler de Kolof
Wawrzyniec Mitzler de Kolof was a Polish physician, historian, publisher, printer, and precursor of the Polish Enlightenment.-Life:...

http://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/47779_1.html

See also