Recently, in Poland, the construction concepts of “Big Poland” are popular. It was besides the motto of the March of Independence, the book on this subject entitled “Wielka Polska” published by Rafał Ziemkiewicz. specified ideas besides appear in governmental and opposition circles – they talk about a fresh Polish-Ukrainian country, about a large geopolitical outturn.
In Polish past there was a period erstwhile representatives of various political options, from the left to the right, performed with specified ideas and concepts. After 1918, we had a flood of ideas for “Great Poland” and then on the power-making Poland (30th century), yet “Polish Empire” etc. In a collision with war reality, all these visions fell apart like a home of cards. But they are now returning. However, the President’s advisor may say that the shower is cold. Volodymyr Zelenski, Alexander Arestovich, talking about the fresh large Polish-Ukrainian geopolitical unit, in which the dominant entity will be... Ukraine.
Which is why we urge reading our publicist, Dr. Adam Dankwho reviewed this passage of Polish political thought from 1918 to the end of the 1930s. The author, erstwhile a proponent of this kind of ideology, accounts for this in the end of his work. We encourage you to read and acquisition this crucial book, besides from the current point of view. Below is an excerpt from the end of Adam Danek's book.
Jan Engelgard
"What is characteristic, many of the spokesmen of Polish imperialism mentioned here presented their demands for Poland to build a large geopolitical unit, comparatively complete redesign of the arrangement of forces in its immediate or further surroundings, as a historical or civilizational mission of the Polish nation.
Antoni Beaupre, Hołówko, Koniński, Braun, the “Young Rebellion” and Statemen from “Our Future”, Bukowicki, Wasiutyński, Karol Stefan Frycz, Stanisław Piasecki And phalangists from the National-Radical Movement. This mission has frequently been understood as the request for Poles to make and disseminate a fresh kind of culture (Koninski, Braun, the rulers, Mejbaum, Stojanowski, Andrzej Trzebiński) or even the creation by her on the map of the planet of a fresh civilization unit (Mejbaum, Wasiutyński, Piasecki, Stojanowski). The authorities and Trzebiński predicted the creation of a new, born universal culture in Poland thanks to the objectiveization of the Polish past experience, while Braun and Mejbaum found the basis for it in the thoughts of Polish Messianic philosophers a day of romance.
Most of these concepts were characterized by striking inconsistency. Their creators preached that Poland must become a power, due to the fact that otherwise it will be crushed by powerful neighbours. The way to gain power was to make a large geopolitical unit around Poland. However, these plans could only be implemented if Poland had already had specified power. And this many times exceeding the real forces of the Second Republic, since the thinkers called here put her tasks, specified as building her own empire or a block of states ranging from Finland to Greece or Turkey, like dismembering russian Russia or... establishing a fresh civilization. The thought of the Polish imperialists was, therefore, most frequently in the incorrect circle: building the Polish imperial structure around the state was expected to supply it with power, but without it it was beyond the scope of Polish capabilities.
And those who do not have power should spare themselves the formulating of mutiny abroad policy programmes, and search ways to strengthen their forces with what they actually possess. From the authors of our home imperial concepts, drawing out visions of abroad conquests and another spectacular actions on the global stage, they were better able to think politically of their contemporaries, who arranged improvement strategies for Poland, sought ways to maximise the mastery and usage of our country's interior resources, increase the productivity of its economy; they created concepts of industrialization, increase the efficiency of Polish agriculture and mobilise public efforts to accomplish these objectives.
Ministers in the governments of the Second Republic did so – Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski (1888-1974), Juliusz Poniatowski (1886-1975), Stefan Starzyński (1893-1939), Julian Piasecki (1896-1944) – together with the ellipse of its associates; industrial circles associated with the “Leviathan” union; the environment of the National Economy Club; Jan Stachniuk (1905-1963) or Julian Brun (1886-1942). Among the authors mentioned earlier in this work, they only took this attitude Kazimierz Studentowicz and Ksavery Pruszyński. crucial that they appeared here marginally, due to the fact that in promoting the imagination from the sign of Polish imperialism they participated only to a tiny extent.
When I started reading texts of Polish imperialists more than 10 years ago, I did so – I must admit – with sympathy for their creators. Polish imperial concepts, regardless of their degree of reality, seemed to be interesting intellectually, colorfully, ambitious, seemingly expressed the "will of power" which was lacking in Polish thinking, marked by suffering and a tendency to feel sorry for the historical destiny of their own nation. Right now, I don't share that assessment at all erstwhile I finish this book. I consider it advisable to add that our home imperial projects did not even have the advantage that originality could be.
For example, the text published by the partisan movement operating in east Europe during planet War II: “The ethnographic territory of Ukraine covers 1 million km2, according to Kubiowicz 930 1000 km2, and according to Rudnyćki’s data 1200 km2... Political boundaries may include territories of abroad nations (...). The substance of creating a Polish state within ethnographic limits will not necessarily be convenient for us. It will be tiny and will have neither economical nor political importance in the world.... The nations of the northern Caucasus are incapable to live independently... The political boundary should run through the summits of the Caucasus mountains (...). The Crimean peninsula is strategically crucial and has natural resources. Although there is simply a tiny percent of Ukrainians in Crimea, it must belong to us.” Second quote on Ukraine: “It covers the areas from Volga to Carpathians, from the Caucasus and the Black Sea to the advanced bank of Dnieper, occupying the space of 1 million km2. It will be a decisive origin in the east problems concerning Russia, the Baltic States, Poland, the Caucasus, the Black Sea countries and the routes of the link to Africa and India through Bosfor and Dardanele and the Mediterranean Sea." Do they not sound acquainted in comparison with the concepts presented earlier in this book?
Quotes come from the publication of the Ukrainian Insurgency Army. Yet erstwhile these words were written, the Ukrainian people were in a much worse situation than Poland during the interwar period, erstwhile most of Polish imperial concepts were created. The Ukrainian nation did not have its own state, and attempts to make it were suppressed by stronger neighbours over 2 decades earlier. On Ukrainian lands, abroad troops were stationed and clashed; the occupiers ran a plundering economy on them, and with the population they acted completely arbitraryly. At the same time, Ukrainian nationalists at UPA were convinced to plan to make an empire of Ukraine that ranged from the Carpathians to the Volga and the Caucasus, a million square kilometers. Their political projects had no support in geopolitics – and this makes them akin to Polish ones, described in this book. possibly by means of visions specified as Polish or Ukrainian imperial concepts of nations in a precarious position simply compensate for their own weakness, alternatively of hard, to look with all severity at the reality of global politics and their place in them?
I mentioned the Nietzschean category of "power will" earlier not by accident. The book on imperial concepts and themes in the Polish political thought of the first half of the 20th century I decided to yet give the title taken from the volume of poesy Leopold Staff, formed during the period erstwhile the poet was fascinated by Nietzscheanism: Dreams of Power. It seems to me to be the shortest of their characteristics. due to the fact that specified are dreams: colorful and even if inspired by reality, it is not bound by its resistance.
And then man must wake up.”
Adam Danek, “Dreams of Power. Concepts and imperial threads in Polish political thought of the first half of the 20th century”, technological Edition of the Ignatinum Academy in Krakow, Kraków 2021, p.437.
Think Poland, No. 47-48 (20-27.11.2022)
