Szowinizm po polsku : przypadek Romana Dmowskiego (1886-1905)

Krzywiec, Grzegorz (1974– )

doi:ISBN 978-83-7543-072-1

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Szowinizm po polsku : przypadek Romana Dmowskiego (1886-1905)

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Title: Szowinizm po polsku : przypadek Romana Dmowskiego (1886-1905)

Abstract:

The central focus of the present book is the emergence of political radicalism at the turn of the 19th and 20th century, and especially one of its versions, rightist radicalism, represented here by Roman Dmowski, a co-founder and leader of the National Democracy. The main problem faced by the author was an attempt to reconstruct the ideological and also socio-political origins of the Polish nationalist right. In one of its possible interpretations the present book could be regarded as a contextual biography devoted to the early period of political activity of this most important ideologue and leader of nationalist movement in Poland at the turn of the 19th century. The chronological range of the book spans the period from 1886 to the outbreak of the Revolution of 1905 that in the secondary sources on the subject is usually distinguished as the time of birth of mass political parties and modern worldview. Although one of the main goals of the book is to present common dilemmas of Polish intelligentsia under the rule of the three partitioning powers, nonetheless these discussions emphasise a dominant role and place of the issues related to the territories of the Polish Kingdom or, more broadly, the whole area of the Russian partition. The author sets his text in context through the introduction presenting the discussion on the term of radicalism and difficulties resulting from applying of the term to Polish conditions. The author has assumed that the most promising approach to the study of political radicalism of the turn of the nineteenth century is the research into its ideological origins within the tensions and antinomies of liberal society of that time, the crisis seen not so much from its institutional and political aspect, as from the aspect of its concepts and ideas, as well as from the peculiarly formulated post-Enlightenment mentality. These phenomena related to the climate of cultural pessimism, often accompanied by the conviction that industrial societies had corrupted and the current forms of playing politics in the broad sense of the term had run out. This approach concerning cultural attitude owards the study of radicalisms of the turn of the 19th century seems attractive for several reasons. It provides a broader background for political movements and views’ trends emerging at that time, presenting both their comprehensive, and thus universalistic aspirations, and their dynamics in the fight against the old order. The creation of a new man, a metaphor adopted by both extremely different socialist movements, the emerging feminist movement or naturally elitist eugenic movement, and also various trends of the new right, could be considered as a symbol of that thinking. This radical tension would find its ideological and social height in totalitarianisms of the 20th century. Such approach allows us to look at the mass political movement emerging at that time taking advantage of still valid and useful research categories, such as a cultural generation, placing it on the map of ideas of those times and thus facilitating the integration of research results of social studies, study of literature and historical research as such. It opens the door to broad comparative studies and allow us to look at the ideological dilemmas of Polish elites and their views both against the broader, European backcloth or more narrow, Central European one. The starting point is the assumption that Polish proposals concerning the world views at the turn of the 19th century were the local transmission of ideological tensions and conflicts plaguing European intellectual classes at that time. The book has a polemical character. It is a discussion with dominant approaches to the studies into the emergence of Polish mass social movements, in that narrow scope which is defined by the phenomenon of intelligentsia’s radicalism, and at the same time an attempt to present a new analytic approach for the study of the turn of the centuries.