L'Europa e la nazione nel pensiero dei nazionaldemocratici polacchi

The paper is devoted to two key concepts in the political thought of national democracy - the idea of the nation and the vision of Europe. The idea of nation in the doctrine of Polish nationalism has been a subject of gradual evolution. Especially within the first years of the 1890s, during the transformation of the Polish League into the National League, the romantic idea of national fraternity was abandoned in favor of “holy national egoism”. The main ideologists of national democracy criticized cosmopolitism and emphasized the importance of national interest, defining it as a “moral absolute”. It is important to note that until 1918, Polish nationalism had developed under conditions of a lack of statehood and was of expansive character. Relations with ethnic minorities was looked upon by Roman Dmowski, Jan Ludwik Popławski and Zygmunt Balicki as a way to populate the Polish nation through the polonization of Ukrainians and Belarusians, while excluding the possibility of the mass assimilation of Jews. Theoreticians of national democracy rejected the idea of Pan-Slavism, although in 1907-1908 they drew heavily on the neo-Slavic movement, treating it as an axis of cooperation between Slavic nations against Germans. At the same time, they rejected the idea of the civilizational supremacy of Russians and postulated the leading role of Poles among Western Slavs. They strongly accentuated relations of Poland with Western Europe, especially with France, Italy and England. In their concept, the Western-European civilization was based on a common Mediterranean heritage, ancient Greek culture, political and legal organization inherited from ancient Rome, and Christianity.