The Jesuit Collegium in the socio-cultural urban context on the Belarusian lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1569-1773: problems and results of the research
The article covers an aspect of the confessional history of Belarus that is currently much discussed. The introduction defines the subject of the research, the Jesuit collegium, which is a typical Jesuit educational and religious institution located within city boundaries, as it was found on the Belarusian part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1569-1773. The main part contains the research program, which aims at defining the combination of factors that enable Jesuit collegiums to function with great stability, to perform the culture-bearing function in sociocultural surroundings, and which also allow the order to recover quickly in the unfavorable conditions of armed conflicts and social upheaval. The article also dwells on methods of working with data sources and reports the results of the research, such as, first, defining a set of features determining the formation of the Jesuit collegium network on the Belarusian part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and accomplishing the periodization, reflecting the evolutional stages of the collegium educational model. Second, revealing the principles on which the Jesuit collegium functioned within and interacted with the sociocultural context of the city; and third, defining the role and place of such relatively independent organizational structures as students' congregation, musical bursa and pharmacy, supplementing the collegium in this interaction. The conclusion is made about the practical importance of the research.