Primed for Violence by Paul Brykczynski is a pioneering and fascinating study that introduces the English-reading audience to the assassination of Gabriel Narutowicz, the first elected president of the Republic of Poland, on December 16, 1922. This tale of murder allows Brykczynski to tell a larger story about nationalism, “the role of antisemitism in Polish history and politics, and the challenges faced by those who sought to resist it, about the rise of the radical right and the breakdown of democracy … and about the power of hateful rhetoric and violent action to transform political culture” (5). Brykczynski's analysis shows that the murder of Narutowicz was not a minor inconsequential affair but an event that transformed Polish national discourse and bullied the political left into retreating from their defense of national minorities. Brykczynski argues that the left “ceased to publicly challenge the nationalist claim that only ethnic Poles had the right to rule Poland” (5), which would have long lasting consequences especially for Polish Jews.
Notably, by examining political violence in Poland as a transnational European phenomenon (5), Brykczynski contributes to the wider historiography on nationalist and antisemitic ideologies on the continent. He asks and convincingly answers broader questions that are still relevant: questions about democracies' ability to survive political violence, the impact of national identity discourse on politics and violence, and the place of antisemitism in fascist ideologies. His argument on the role of antisemitism as a trigger of political violence is particularly revealing. He theorizes political antisemitism as a “dynamic political phenomenon” (11), contingent upon the electoral politics of the 1920s. Like Scott Ury, in his Barricades and Banners: The Revolution of 1905 and the Transformation of Warsaw Jewry, Brykczynski focuses on the relationship “between the dynamics of electoral politics in Russian-ruled Poland, on the one hand, and radicalization and disseminations of political antisemitism among the masses, on the other” (4). But, unlike Ury, he “place[s] more weight on the role of contingent variables in structuring the discourse of the nation [and minorities] during electoral contests” (4). He makes a convincing argument that the distinctive electoral system and parliamentary results (in the context of the debate over the meaning of Polishness) made it possible for the radical right (politicians and press) to turn vague antisemitic resentment into the concrete and urgent “Jewish threat,” which then led to Narutowicz's murder and anti-Jewish violence on the streets of Warsaw. This sophisticated and theoretically rich analysis secures Primed for Violence an important place in the scholarship on the role of antisemitism in European history.
Primed for Violence is a case study in political history which draws heavily on extensive primary sources: press articles, electoral pamphlets, parliamentary and police records as well as memoirs of relevant political figures. This selection of sources firmly grounds Brykczynski's narrative in the city of Warsaw without affording insight into the impact of the assassination outside the capitol. For example, municipal records outside Warsaw would allow the author to test his argument on the role of the assassination in the political left's abandonment of minorities on a national scale. The lack of sources from Warsaw parishes also precludes analysis of the role of the Catholic Church. However, these omissions should not be seen as a weakness but as an invitation for more research by historians fluent in a variety of methods. For example, social historians can further build on Brykczynski's study by investigating the social and cultural bases for receptivity to antisemitism among university students who seemed particularly active in the anti-Jewish riots in Warsaw in December 1922. While there is substantial scholarship on the fascist youth in Germany and Italy, the young of the Polish Endecja still await analysis.
Brykczynski's book is an outstanding and welcome contribution to scholarship on Polish nationalism, the history of antisemitism, political violence, fascism, and democratic politics. Well written with accessible prose, it will resonate with the public at large as we grapple with contemporary challenges to democracy across the globe.
