The “political writing” of Jan Ludwik Popławski is 1 of those books that allows to better realize what he was and how the modern national movement in Poland was shaped.
Collected publications and analytical texts of this prominent ideologist of National Democracy show not only the political program, but above all the worldview that lay at the foundation of reasoning about Polish statehood, identity and civic obligations.
Popławski wrote clearly, with passion and precision. He was not curious in slippery speculation of philosophy, but in concrete: earth, society, past and the future of the nation. His deliberations concerned, among others, the peasant issue, the request to rebuild national awareness, the relation between culture and politics and the importance of cultural and linguistic community.
In the “political writings”, we will find a clear message: the nation is not only a common past, but above all a task for the future. Popławski appealed for activity, for national education, for building political and economical strength of Poles. Although he wrote in terms of partitions, much of his diagnosis sounds amazingly modern: about the disintegration of social solidarity, about the dangers arising from the deficiency of a uniform national policy, about the request for the work of the elite.
It's a reading that requires reasoning and confrontation. For some, it can be an inspiration, for others, but it surely does not leave indifferent. Popławski wrote not to delight everyone, but to form a national consciousness. And he was effective at that. It is worth going back to his texts to see how you can think of Poland with passion, work and a clear goal.
