The Contribution of the Jesuit Order to the Propagation of the Enlightenment Ideas in Lithuania

Abstract

The Enlightenment came to Lithuania in the second half of the XVIII century, at the time of economical and political disorder. The Lithuanian establishment treated the ideas of Enlightenment as the means against the degradation of the country. The Jesuit Order responded to the influence of the Enlightenment reshaping its educational programmes, first of all in the Vilnius University, which they had establis-hed a century ago...