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Who Is a Pole and Where Is Poland? Territory and Nation in the Rhetoric of Polish National Democracy before 1905

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Brian A. Porter
Brian A. Porter*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison
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Extract

At the turn of the twentieth century most Polish political activists dreamed of recreating the Polish state, although they disagreed about where the new Poland should be located and whom it should include. In the years before 1905 the National Democratic movement—the “Endecja,” as it was commonly called—envisioned an expansive Poland stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and from the Dnieper to the Oder. How could a movement which came to be known for its pragmatism and tactical flexibility espouse such an unrealistic, if not absurd, ambition? How could nationalists who insisted upon cultural unity desire a nation which would include millions who neither spoke the Polish language nor considered themselves to be Poles? This article will argue that these questions can be illuminated by examining the Endecja's definition of that enigmatic Polish term, naród (nation).

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 51 , Issue 4 , Winter 1992 , pp. 639 - 653
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1992

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References

Research for this article was assisted by a grant from the American Council of Learned Societies. I would like to thank Professors David McDonald, Alfred Senn andjanine Hole, as well as my colleagues Jonathan Grant and Brian Chipman, for their constructive criticisms of a previous draft of this essay.

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2. There are several biographies of Dmowski, including Ignacy Chrzanowski and Kozicki, Stanislaw, “Roman Dmowski—zarys biograficzny,” in Kulakowski, Mariusz, ed., Roman Dmowski w swietle listow i wspomnien (London: Gryf Publications, 1968), 1: 17–90 Google Scholar; Alvin Marcus Fountain II, Roman Dmowski: Party, Tactics, Ideology, 1895-1907 (Boulder: East European Monographs, 1980 Google Scholar; Micewski, Andrzej, Roman Dmowski (Warsaw: Verum, 1971 Google Scholar; Wapiriski, Roman, Roman Dmowski (Lublin: Wydawnictwo Lubelskie, 1988 Google Scholar. For biographical information on Poplawski, see Kulak, Teresa, “Jan Ludwik Poplawski,” in Polski Slownik Biograficzny (Wroclaw: Ossolineum, 1983), 27: 608–11Google Scholar; and Wasilewski, Zygmunt, “Jan Ludwik Poplawski: szkic wizerunku,” in Poplawski, , Pisma polityczne, ed. Wasilewski, Zygmunt (Krakow and Warsaw: Gebethner i Wolff, 1910), 1: V–LXIV Google Scholar. On Balicki, see Kurczewska, Joanna, “Zygmunt Balicki—socjolog czy nacjonalista?” in Narod w socjologii i ideologii polskiej: analiza porownawcza wybranych koncepcji z przetomu XIX i XX wieku (Warsaw: Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1979), 206–302 Google Scholar; and Wojciechowski, Zygmunt, “Zygmunt Balicki,” in Polski Slownik Biograficzny (Krakow: Akademia Umiejetnosci, 1935), 1: 233–36.Google Scholar

3. Dmowski, Roman, Mysli nowoczesnego polaka, 7th ed. (London: Kola Mlodych Stronnictwa Narodowego, 1953 Google Scholar; Balicki, Zygmunt Egoizm narodowy wobec etyki, 3rd ed. (Warsaw: Gebethner i Wolff, 1914 Google Scholar. Dmowski's text was actually serialized in Przeglqd Wszechpolski a year before its publication as a book.

4. The term “National Democracy” comes from the name of the movement's political wing, the Stronnictwo Demokratyczno-Narodowe, or Democratic National Party, which was founded in the Russian partition of Poland in 1897.

5. Dmowski, Poplawski and Balicki were not the only National Democrats who actively participated in the formulation of the Endecja's ideology. Karol Raczkowski, Teofil Waligorski, Stanislaw Kozicki, Tadeusz Gruzewski, Zygmunt Wasilewski, Jan Stecki and others (including several anonymous local correspondents for Przeglqd Wszechpolski) all contributed to the Endecja's publications and participated in the movement's ideological construction. However, the activities of the threesome emphasized in this essay overshadowed, both qualitatively and quantitatively, the involvement of other articulate National Democrats. Indeed, for several extended periods before 1900, Poplawski and Dmowski were forced to compose entire issues of Przeglqd Wszechpolski by themselves. See Kozicki, 103.

6. Geoff Eley, discussing a topic similar to that examined in this essay, has criticized historians of the German right for studying only the ideology of the elites and assuming that the articulate few “manipulated” the masses. He calls upon us to concentrate instead upon the interaction between “leaders” and “led.” Eley, Geoff, Reshaping the German Right: Radical Nationalism and Political Change after Bismarck (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), 11, 42-47, 163–68Google Scholar. For a more general critique of the elitism of intellectual historians, see Berger, Peter L. and Luckmann, Thomas, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Garden City: Doubleday, 1966.Google Scholar

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8. For examples of this “later” Dmowski, see his Problems of Central and Eastern Europe (London, 1917); and Polityka polska i odbudowanie panstwa (Warsaw: Instytut Wydawniczy Pax, 1988). This is a re-edition of the 1937 version of the book, with a new introduction by Tomasz Wituch.

9. Tomasz Wituch, “Przedmowa,” in Dmowski, Polityka polska, 16-17.

10. Wojciech Wasiutyriski, Czwarte pokolenie: szkice z dziejow nacjonalizmu polskiego (London: Odnowa, 1982), 10.

11. Fountain, 103-106, 160. Fountain mentions in passing that Dmowski never abandoned the ideas of “Providence” or “the power of the spirit” but he does not develop this point further. Fountain is not, strictly speaking, an apologist for the Endecja but he does defend Dmowski against his detractors: “Roman Dmowski's early political writings and activities deserve rescue from the obscurity which has befallen them” (Fountain, 163).

12. Barbara Toruiiczyk, ed., Narodowa Demokracja: antologia mysli politycznej ‘Przeglqdu Wszechpolskiego’ (1895-1905) (London: Aneks, 1983), 19.

13. Michnik, Adam, “Ugoda, praca organiczna, mysl zaprzeczna,” in Szanse polskiej demokracji: artykuty i eseje (London: Aneks, 1984), 138–39.Google Scholar

14. Roman Wapinski, “Idea narodu w mysli spolecznej i politycznej endecji przed rokiem 1918,” in Janusz Gockowski and Andrzej Walicki, eds., Idee i koncepcje narodu w polskiej mysli politycznej czasw porozbiorowych (Warsaw: Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1977), 224.

15. Walicki, Andrzej, The Three Traditions in Polish Patriotism and Their Contemporary Relevance (Bloomington: The Polish Studies Center, 1988), 23–24.Google Scholar

16. Chrzanowski, Ignacy, “Roman Dmowski—zarys biograficzny, cz. 1: 1886-1906,” in Kulakowski, Mariusz, Roman Dmowski w swietle listow i wspomnieri (London: Gryf, 1968), 1: 36.Google Scholar

17. Kozicki, 452.

18. Kozicki, 473-75. Toporowski also briefly mentions National Democracy's “synthesis” of romanticism and realism, though she does not expand upon this observation (Toporowski, 385). Fountain, on the other hand, sees the Endecja as a product of the “almost all-pervading Darwinism” of the late nineteenth century (Fountain, 103).

19. Despite these qualifications I will use “nation” instead of narod in this paper in order to avoid the cumbersome artificiality of employing the Polish term.

20. Zimand, Roman, “Uwagi o teorii narodu na marginesie analizy nacjonalistycznej teorii narodu,” Studia Filozoficzna, no. 4 (1967): 9, 13.Google Scholar

21. Balicki, 38.

22. Dmowski, 49.

23. G. Topor [Tadeusz Gruzewski], “Narod, tradycja, i postepcywilizacyjny,” Przeglqd Wszechpolski, 1905: 410.

24. Poplawski, “Nasz demokratyzm,” in Pisma, 1: 110.

25. Syzuf, “Z powodu pewnej broszury,” Przeglqd Wszechpolski, 1898: 327.

26. Dmowski, 26.

27. “Jednosc narodowa,” Przeglqd Wszechpolski, 1895: 82.

28. Dmowski, 26.

29. The reader may find it disturbing that I do not here address the anti-Semitism of the National Democratic movement. It is indeed the case that anti-Semitism pervaded all aspects of National Democratic thought; this facet is not stressed here merely because of limitations of space. I do not want my underemphasis of the topic to contribute to the myth that it is possible to separate National Democracy from anti-Semitism: neither would have taken its modern form in Poland without the other.

30. Dmowski, 106.

31. The literature on Polish romantic nationalism is extensive. Some of the best works include: Handelsman, Marceli, Rozwoj narodowosci nowoczesnej (Warsaw: Gebethner i Wolff, 1923-1926)Google Scholar; Mieczyslaw Inglot, “Narodowosc a literature w polskiej krytyce literackiej okresu romantyzmu,” in Gockowski, 61-83; Serejski, Marian, Narod a paristwo w polskiej mysli historycznej (Warsaw: Paristwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1973), 99–160 Google Scholar; Szacki, Jerzy, Ojczyzna, narod, rewolucja: problematyka narodowa w polskiej mysli szlacheckorewolucyjnej (Warsaw: Paristwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1962), 116–250 Google Scholar; Ujejski, Jozef, Dzieje polskiego mesjanizmu do powstania listopadowego wlacznie (Lwow: Ossolineum, 1931 Google Scholar; Andrzej Walicki, “Mesjanistyczne koncepcje narodu i pozniejsze losy tej tradycji,” in Idee i koncepcje, 84-107; Walicki, Andrzej, Philosophy and Romantic Nationalism: The Case of Poland (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982 Google Scholar; Zielinski, Andrzej, Narod i narodowosc w polskiej literaturze i publicystyce lat 1815-1831 (Wroclaw: Ossolineum, 1969.Google Scholar

32. Poplawski, “Nasz patriotyzm i nasza taktyka,” in Pisma, 1: 61.

33. The term “social darwinism” is an unfortunate expression, since this doctrine has much more to do with Herbert Spencer than Charles Darwin. On the other hand, neither should the liberal Spencer be “blamed” for National Democracy. I will therefore bow to popular usage and employ the phrase “social darwinism. “

34. Dmowski, 40, 48, 66-68.

35. Balicki, 72, 58.

36. Dmowski, 173.

37. Ibid., 14. This amoral approach disturbed many Catholic Polish nationalists. The relations between the Endecja and the Catholic Church go beyond the scope of this paper. Briefly, the Endecja acknowledged the importance of the Church in Polish national life, but did not accept either Catholic moral and ethical teaching, or Catholic universalism. Neither did they accept religion, any more than language, as a determination of national membership.

38. On the Polish positivists’ conception of the nation, see Modzelewski, Wojciech, Narod i postep: problematyka narodowa w ideologii i mysli spolecznej pozytywistow warszawskich (Warsaw: Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1977 Google Scholar. Some of the most important works on positivism in Poland are: Blejwas, Stanislaus A., Realism in Polish Politics: Warsaw Positivism and National Survival in Nineteenth Century Poland (New Haven: Yale Concilium on International and Area Studies, 1984)Google Scholar; Hochfeldowa, Anna and Skarga, Barbara, eds., Z historiiJilozofiipozytywistycznej w Polsce. Ciqglosc i przemiany (Wroclaw: Ossolineum, 1972 Google Scholar; Markiewicz, Henryk, Pozytywizm (Warsaw: Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1978 Google Scholar; Rudzkf, Jerzy, Aleksander Swietochowski i pozytywizm warszawski (Warsaw: Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1968 Google Scholar.

39. Popiawski, “Realizm polityczny i przyszJa polska,” in Pisma, 1: 90.

40. Stanislaw Kolobukowski, “Kresy nasze zachodnie,” Przeglqd Wszechpolski, 1895: 11.

41. Dmowski, Niemcy, Rosya, i kwestya polska (Lwow: Towarzystwo Wydawnicze, 1908), 24.

42. Popiawski, “Sprawa ruska,” in Pisma, 2: 376.

43. Dmowski, Polityka polska, 55-66.

44. Wasiutynski, 36-37.

45. Wapiriski, Narodowa Demokracja, 57; and Wapiriski, “Z dziejow tendencji nacjonalistycznych: o stanowisku narodowej demokracji wobec kwestii narodowej w latach 1893-1939,” Kwartalnyk Historyczny, no. 4 (1980): 827.

46. Poplawski, “Sprawa ruska,” 300. This is one of the reasons, Poplawski argues here, that we cannot think of Poland as an ethnic unity or hope to linguistically polonize the “Ruthenians. “

47. Poplawski, “Zadania polityki narodowej na kresach,” in Pisma, 2: 369.

48. Poplawski, “Polityka slowiariska,” in Pisma, 1: 204.

49. Poplawski, “Sprawa ruska,” 383.

50. Dmowski, Niemcy, 461.

51. Poplawski, “Srodki obrony,” in Pisma, 2: 15.

52. Poplawski, “Polityka polska w zaborze pruskim,” in Pisma, 2: 186.

53. Poplawski, “Jubileusz pruski,” in Pisma, 1: 240.

54. Narodowiec [Dmowski], “W naszym obozie,” Przeglqd Wszechpolski, 1901: 421-22. Emphasis mine.