Specyfika polskiej refleksji romantycznej nad rasą i pojęciami pokrewnymi
The specifics of Polish romantic reflection on race and cognate notions

Summary/Abstract: The one and basic characteristic feature of Polish Romantic reflection on race was that it associated race with tribeness. Such a reduction of the notion ‘race’ to ethnicity resulted from the then known definition of nation as a multiethnic and multicultural community which constituted the superior and superb form of organizing the societal world, as well as from weakness of scholarly reflection in the field of physical anthropology. For Polish Romantics, race was not an objective category that on the basis of existing physical differences enabled a division of humanity into permanent and clearly delimitated phonotypical populations. Race was identified with tribeness and related to a long gone past when the human kind merely created primitive social ties based on kinship of blood. However, what is really binding people is not biological criteria but spiritual semblance: communion of thought, feelings, and purpose.

• Details
• Contents