Dziedzictwo przeszłości i pamięć historyczna jako czynniki determinujące politykę bezpieczeństwa. Przypadek polityki zagranicznej i obronnej Polski 1918-1944/45 r.
The heritage of the past and historical memory as factors determining security policy. The case of Polish foreign and defense policy 1918-1944/45

Summary/Abstract: The shaping of the security and defence policy of the Second Polish Republic took place primarily under the influence of the development of the domestic situation in the country and evolution of the European security system. However, in the case of Poland, experience and historical memory played a greater role in this field than in the case of other countries. Poland as a state did not exist for a dangerously long 123 years. During that period, as a kind of substitute for the Polish state, the so-called “Question polonaise/Polish Question” was present in the political life and security of system Europe, that is all problems related to the Polish nation’s efforts to regain the state, which often manifested itself in the form of armed uprisings. It was so difficult to solve that it remained unresolved throughout the nineteenth century. Both the circumstances of the collapse of the Polish state and the evolution of the «question polonaise» in the «long» nineteenth century (for Poland from 1795 to 1918) provided Europe with experiences going in different directions, evoking on the one hand certain hopes and expectations, but on the other hand doubts, and even fears. As a result, in 1918, the project of restoring the Polish state was universally (and irrevocably!) accepted, but no agreement was reached on its borders, and thus, indirectly, on its socio-economic system. The year 1918 should be seen not only as the end of the century of the struggle for independence, but also as the opening of the next century, the century of the struggle to maintain the Polish state and to give it a form corresponding to the aspirations of the nation and accepted by the geopolitical surroundings of Poland. In the short interwar period, those efforts were not successful. Faced with the evolution of the international situation and the European security system, unfavourable for Poland, the political elites largely failed. They came from the upper and privileged social classes, mainly from the post-feudal layer of landowners and from the intelligentsia, rooted in that layer, both of whom were especially numerous in Poland. In many areas of key importance from the point of view of the security of the country and of the nation, they were unable to break out of the circle of ideas and views taken from the past. In their political thinking, they were subject to the limitations typical of post-feudal landowning layers. And so, in the internal dimension, they did not manage to make the effort to reform social relations in the form of a radical land reform, or to give real equality to national minorities (especially Ukrainian and Jewish). They also failed to prevent the evolution of the state system in an anti-democratic and authoritarian direction. In the external dimension, they failed to properly assess the potentials, intentions, and actions of the two totalitarian powers which bordered on Poland, namely the Third Reich and the Soviet Union.

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