A Sarmatian on China

Tomasz Szpot Dunin and His Account of Jesuit Missions in the Far East

Résumé

The article presents Tomasz Ignacy Szpot Dunin as a Jesuit historiographer of the Chinese mission who consciously described himself as a “Sarmata scriptor” and projected the cultural experience he had acquired in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth onto his account of China. The opening section outlines Szpot’s formative background: Podlasie as a borderland region, followed by the Vilnius Academy and Jesuit colleges located on the eastern fringes of the Polish–Lithuanian state. The author links his biography with the experience of multiethnicity and multiconfessionalism, as well as with the proximity of the steppe world, particularly the presence of the Lithuanian Tatars, their military ethos, genealogical memory, and distinctive attitude toward authority. This borderland experience helps explain why Szpot – although he never visited China – did not portray the Orient solely in terms of exoticism, but rather as a reality that could be interpreted through analogies familiar from Eastern Europe. Drawing on examples from Szpot’s works, the article demonstrates that he described imperial authority in China using the language of moral obligations, akin to the Old Polish ideal of the ruler as the “father” of his subjects. The author compares this mode of narration with the tradition of Polish politico-moral reflection and points out that, in Szpot’s writing, the description of facts constantly shifts into ethical interpretation. His tendency to view Chinese history within a broad “Eurasian” horizon is also emphasized, one in which the tension between the agrarian world and the steppe constitutes one of the key organizing principles of the narrative. The article also discusses the way in which Szpot organizes Chinese religious and ethical traditions, distinguishing the “teaching of the scholars” as the oldest and supreme doctrine, while treating other practices as lower forms. The author interprets this as an echo of the Sarmatian experience of a multi-confessional order safeguarded by the authority of the ruler. Taken as a whole, the analysis leads to the conclusion that Szpot’s writings should be read not merely as a compendium on China and the missions, but as a Sarmatian, theological-political reflection on order, morality, and the Christian mission in the non-European world.