Suchergebnisse

In 1922, voters in the newly created Republic of Poland democratically elected their first president, Gabriel Narutowicz. Because his supporters included a Jewish political party, an opposing faction of antisemites demanded his resignation. Within hours, bloody riots erupted in Warsaw, and within a week the president was assassinated. In the wake of these events, the radical right asserted that only ""ethnic Poles"" should rule the country, while the left silently capitulated to this demand.As Paul Brykczynski tells this gripping story, he explores the complex role of antisemitism, nationalism

On 30 December 1922, Eligiusz Niewiadomski, the murderer of Poland's first president, Gabriel Narutowicz, was tried and sentenced to death. The execution was duly carried out on 31 January 1923. The trial of Niewiadomski was one of the most important and galvanizing judicial proceedings in the history of the Second Republic. According to the historiography, Niewiadomski was universally perceived as a "lunatic" or "madman" and his actions were a political setback and embarrassment for the Polish radical right. During the trial, Niewiadomski evinced no contrition for his crime and claimed that his deed was the expression of "the conscience and offended dignity of the nation." In this article, I will present the argument that shortly after his trial, the right wing publicists' and politicians' judgment of Niewiadomski underwent a profound transformation. Far from being condemned as a "madman" or "murderer," Niewiadomski assumed the position of a "tragic hero" who may have broken the letter of the law but who had done so in the name of just principles, which deserved recognition and approval. The pivotal event in this transformation was the rabidly anti-Semitic speech delivered by Niewiadomski during his trial. The paper analyzes the coverage of the trial and execution in the press in order to arrive at an understanding of precisely how the Polish right was able to reclaim Niewiadomski as one of its own so quickly despite his grave crime. It also analyzes the meaning of this transformation and its significance for understanding the nationalist right in Poland and, more broadly, interwar Polish politics as a whole.

This paper examines the intellectual underpinnings of the nationalism articulated by the followers of Marshal Józef Piłsudski (Piłsudskiites), who ruled Poland between 1926 and 1939. Scholarly consensus holds that modern Polish nationalism was solely the domain of the National Democratic movement. Conversely, the Piłsudskiites' conception of the nation is generally seen as anachronistic, poorly articulated, self-contradictory, and lacking a deeper intellectual foundation. Focusing on the formative years of the Second Polish Republic (1918-1922), this paper draws a link between Piłsudskiite political thought and the philosophy of the heterodox Marxist theorist Stanislaw Brzozowski. Re-examining the early writings of Piłsudski's followers in light of Brzozowski's philosophy, the paper presents the argument that "Piłsudskiite nationalism" was in fact deeply constructivist, surprisingly sophisticated, and no less "modern" than the nationalist discourse articulated by the National Democrats. In the process, the article interrogates and problematizes the classic "ethnic" vs. "civic" typology of nationalist movements.

In Polish history, Prince Adam Czartoryski is almost universally regarded as one of the most important Polish statesmen and patriots of the first half of the nineteenth century. In Russian history, on the other hand, he is remembered chiefly as the Foreign Minister of the Russian Empire, and a close personal friend of Tsar Alexander I. How did Czartoryski reconcile his commitment to the Polish nation with his service to the Russian Empire (a state which occupied most of Poland)? This paper will attempt to place Prince Adam's friendship with Alexander, and his service to Imperial Russia, in the broader context of national identity formation in early nineteenth-century eastern Europe. It will be argued that the idea of finding a workable relationship between Poland and Russia, even within the framework of a single state for a "Slavic nation," was an important and forgotten feature of Polish political thought at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. By answering the question of precisely how Czartoryski was able to negotiate between the identities of a "Polish patriot" and "Russian statesman," the paper will shed light on the broader development of national identity in early nineteenth-century Poland and Russia.

This paper examines the respective conceptions of nationalism in the political thought of Hassan al- Banna and Sayyid Qutb, two of the most important Arab theorists of what is often referred to as "Islamism" or "radical political Islam." While al-Banna was the chief theoretician of the Muslim Brotherhood, a mainstream, and today relatively peaceful, Islamist organization, Qutb's writings have been most closely embraced by the movement's radical and violent offshoots. By undertaking a close textual analysis of their writings, the paper attempts to examine the differences between the two theorists' ideas concerning the proper relationship between religion and nationalism in the construction of identity and to place these in a wider cultural and intellectual context. The paper also attempts to account for some of the differences in the two theorists' views concerning nationalism by looking at the respective social, political, and intellectual context in which each thinker operated. Finally, the paper offers a discussion of the possibility that the pan-Islamic ideology of thinkers like Qutb and al-Banna can itself be seen as a form of nationalism.