Stanisław Koźmian (1836–1922) to Polish January Insurrection
Stanisław Koźmian (1836–1922) to Polish January Insurrection

Summary/Abstract: Polish January Insurrection was to Stanisław Koźmian a kind of historical experience with a decisive meaning. The analysis of his work leads to assumption that January Insurrection could have been conventional “catalysit” in Koźmian’s perception of Polish history (collapse of Polish Republic) and a manifestation of political program which agreed to the lack of Polish statehood. Koźmian, writing Rzecz o roku 1863, focused more on political project than on history. January Insurrection served him only as a basis to present harmfulness thinking in categories of Polish statehood’s restoration in captivity, where such thinking was daydream and not real political possibility. Koźmian did not write off the independence and the chance to regain it saw only in the outbreak of European war which would put partitioning powers against each other. He did not hide his personal emotions towards the year 1863. He “used” them as a kind of “weapon” against romantic ideology and Polish historic megalomania (the myth of christianity rampart, polonophobia). All the same, he could not avoid technical “slip-ups”, he wrote chaotically. Rzecz o roku 1863 is first of all a political commentary pointed to confrontation, to clash of views and it is a very subjective apology of Stańczyk’s community. (“Stańczycy” – a political grouping, mainly landowners and senior officials in Galicia in the 2nd mid-nineteenth and early twentieth century). It is also an important, however underestimated document of Polish national thought. It seems that Koźmian writing his Rzecz had an obvious intention to build a legend around conservationists’s attitude in 1863. He brought out those elements of history of January which matched his a priori assumed thesis, a fact that was pointed out by his political opponents. Using the terminology from the contemporary theory of history, we can call Koźmian “historian – legislator”, who subordinated the history of 1863 to political vision being at the same time a reaction to Polish insurrection defeat. The present text is first of all the interpretation of Koźmian’s work and an element of a better understanding the circumstances of Polish 19 century’s discourse about January Insurrection. Trans. A. Gierba

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