Polish Gene of Freedom
In the 19th century Georg Morris Cohen Brandes, an outstanding Danish literary critic, philosopher and writer, recognized by contemporaries as an excellent observer of people and social phenomena, visited Polish lands five times. These journeys took place at a time when Poland had been absent from the political maps of Europe for over a century. He visited the territories incorporated into the Russian Empire, where russification terror reigned after the defeat of the January Uprising, as well as the territories that were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where relative autonomy and freedom prevailed under the rule of emperor Francis Joseph I. The fruit of these journeys became a book titled “Polska” (Poland), published in the language of the people he described, in Lviv in 1898. The author endeavoured to be impartial in his assessment of the Poles. On one hand, he observed that we are a nation “that feels aversion to intense effort and long-term work ” and that we are “enthusiastic and impractical, often reckless.” On the other hand, he admired Polish hospitality, warmth, and sincerity.
Brandes dedicated considerable attention to the characteristic which, in his opinion, distinguishes Poles from other nations. “Poles are a nation – he wrote – that above all loved independence to madness. (…) Therefore Poland is not loved as one loves Germany or France or England – but it is loved as one loves freedom. To love Poland is, after all, to love freedom, to have a deep sympathy for misfortune, to admire courage and martial fervour. Poland is a symbol in the love of freedom, a symbol of everything noble that humanity has loved and fought for (…). Everywhere in Europe, wherever anyone fights for freedom, they also fight for Poland.” He also added bitterly “This nation has not a single friend among the world powers, but it has effective, extremely effective, and tirelessly working enemies, and unfortunately for the Polish nation, these enemies belong decisively to the most powerful powers in the world.[1]“
This assessment was not isolated in the then world. European politicians, writers, poets, and thinkers who observed the fate of Poland and the Poles since the late 18th century noticed that the extraordinary bond holding together a nation deprived of its own state was the love of freedom, as the highest value, as a point of reference, as a dream and a goal to strive for, regardless of adversities. It is worth noting that the Poles encountered by the quoted author never had the opportunity to live and function in a free state. They did not know what freedom was. “Born in captivity, chained in birth” – they could repeat after the national bard Adam Mickiewicz, who described himself thus in “Pan Tadeusz.” However, Mickiewicz could still learn what freedom meant, as this condition was the fate of the generation of his upbringing parents. People from the late 19th century did not experience a state of freedom even based on the accounts of their parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents, as a century had passed since the last partition. Yet, the love of freedom became somewhat a part of their cultural code. They had it rooted in their genes. It was a kind of myth passed down from generation to generation. A myth that was also considered the testament of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which in the 16th and 17th centuries was an European superpower.
The love of freedom, primarily understood as personal freedom of citizens, was the foundation of the political system of the pre-partition Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Unfortunately, since the end of the 17th century, the republican character of the political system of the Republic began to hinder the maintenance of state independence, especially in the face of the aggressive policies of neighbouring powers such as Russia and Prussia towards Poland. This can be seen clearly in the case of the constitutional principle known as the “liberum veto.” In theory this principle was supposed to serve unanimity and was an important symbol emphasizing the communal character of the Commonwealth while also being an effective mechanism providing a balance between royal power and noble freedom. However, starting from the Sejm of 1652 and 1669, when it was exploited by Władysław Siciński and Jan Aleksander Olizar, this principle became a practical brake on the legislation in the Commonwealth. A brake skilfully utilized by foreign powers, which in practice meant that over the course of several decades, the Sejm was dissolved 73 times.
Many eminent thinkers and reformers of that time argued about the consequences of freedom turning into anarchy. Stanisław Konarski in the 1760s published a political tractate “On the Effective Way of Advising”. He argued that external freedom requires limitation of what fellow citizens considered to be the guarantee of a free system. “Where will be freedom – he rhetorically asked – when the Republic itself perishes?” He did not question the republican principles of the system but warned that freedom should not turn into its own caricature leading to anarchy. “No state can endure long under anarchy[2]“. The reforms introduced by the Great Sejm, especially the first European constitution, the Government Act passed on May 3, 1791, aimed to heal and repair this state of affairs. Unfortunately, it was too late. The partition treaties erased Poland from the political maps of the world. “Golden freedom was judged by captivity” wrote bitterly and accurately Karol Wojtyła, later (from 1978) Pope John Paul II, in his poem “Thinking of the Homeland”.
It is worth noting that it was precisely during the difficult time of state reform at the end of the 18th century that the word “independence” first appeared in writings and documents in reference to the state and national community. Earlier, the term “freedom” primarily referred to the private and civil sphere, not necessarily and not always to the communal sphere. The tragedy of the Republic at the end of the 18th century gave it a new meaning. It resounded most strongly in the Constitution of May 3. “Free from humiliating foreign violence, valuing above life, above personal happiness (…) external independence and internal freedom of the nation” were written in the preamble of the act, which Hugo Kołłątaj later called the “last will and testament of a dying homeland”. The love of freedom and independence thus became an essential element of the Polish spirit with the loss of a sovereign state.
Freedom and independence, understood in this way, became the goal for five generations of Poles during the partitions. Unknown – it became a desire and a myth uniting and connecting generations. It also became a defining element of Polishness, or even the definition of Polishness and Poland. In a letter to prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, our bard Juliusz Słowacki wrote: “When you ask me what is the idea of Poland? I will answer – it is freedom[3]“.
As we read in many memoirs, one of the most popular songs in the 19th century was a piece created during the November Uprising by Jan Nepomucen Kamiński:
“A Pole is not a servant, he doesn’t know what masters are,
he won’t allow himself to be shackled by force,
he lives for freedom, he has a craving for freedom,
without it, he withers like a flower without water.”
These simple words encapsulated what “played in the souls,” what was part of home upbringing, where an indispensable element was the reading of Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz’s “Historical Songs,” the poetry of Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki, or Zygmunt Krasiński. A good example of nurturing the freedom gene in the family circle is the family home of Józef Piłsudski. It is worth mentioning because Piłsudski became the educator for the next generation. It was he and his associates who shaped and educated the generation of the Second Polish Republic, for whom independence was elevated to the rank of an absolute.
Piłsudski often mentioned that the greatest influence on his life was his upbringing, within which he was primarily instilled with a sense of dignity of a free man, who can sacrifice himself for the independence of the community. Just before the famous action at Bezdany in 1908, whose goal was to obtain a considerable sum of money needed for independence activities from the Russians, he wrote in a dramatic letter-testament to his friend Feliks Perl: “I fight and will die only because I cannot live in this excrement, which is our life; it insults – you hear – it insults me as a human being with non-slavish dignity[4]“.
For Piłsudski and the entire generation, which Bohdan Cywiński once described as “the generation of the disobedient”, Polishness understood as a love for freedom also became an antithesis to the spirit of slavery, which was pervasive among the most oppressive oppressors of the Poles, namely the Russians. At the threshold of war with Bolshevik Russia, Piłsudski said to his associates: “If personal freedom is unattainable, the freedom of others arouses envy and repulsion among Russians. For centuries, we have been too close and vivid a contradiction to their own fate. I fear that it will take too much time before they understand and before it becomes ingrained in their blood as a command of conscience that no one and nothing, except death, can take away our right to freedom[5]“.
In the spirit of cherishing the independence of our own Homeland, with a sense bordering on contempt for one’s own health and life, the interwar generation of Poland was shaped and raised, which passed the test of freedom during the most terrible of wars – World War II. It is important to remember this, especially when today we engage in historical or journalistic considerations about the justification of the struggle, whether in the Warsaw Uprising or in the anti-communist resistance during the period of post-war communist oppression. Indeed, it is difficult to properly assess people’s actions without considering their contemporary emotions, mood and spirit.
Illustrating well how the interwar generation approached the matter of independence as the most precious gift, for which everything could be sacrificed, is the sermon delivered by Primate of the Millennium Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński in the basilica of St. Cross in Warsaw on the hundredth anniversary of the January Uprising. He spoke about the uprising of 1863, but the listeners understood well that he was talking about any effort and struggle serving the independence of the country. Also about the struggle of the Home Army, of which he was a chaplain in the Kampinos Group. “People of wisdom will say ‘But the uprising failed’ – said the primate – Wasn’t it better to live peacefully in organic work, to build, repair roads, cultivate the land, develop technical devices, improve the economic well-being of the nation, calmly, quietly? (…) Yet a man must remember that when his feet are immersed in his native soil, his head rises high, and his heart yearns for something even greater. The saddest nations are those for whom the only ideal set is the pursuit of material goals. When a man or a nation feels bound and constrained in any way, when he feels that he no longer has the freedom of opinion and expression, freedom of culture and work, but everything is taken in some chains and clamps, then there is no need for complexes. It is enough to be only a decent human being, to have a sense of honour and personal dignity to rebel against such slavery, seeking means and ways to escape from it”.
And he added words that illustrate in an extremely simple but accurate way what the Polish gene of freedom is: “Have you ever watched a bird, how it beats itself in a cage? It tears out all its feathers from its chest. A cold observer watching this may say ‘stupid bird!’ We must not say that – we must say “it tears itself into the world”. And everyone who is honest will make it easier for him. It is better to open the cage and give wings the opportunity to develop in flights, and breasts to grow stronger, as demanded by the task and destiny of man and nation”. These words aptly conclude these brief reflections: the freedom we carry in our genes is our destiny as people creating a national and state community.
Jan Józef Kasprzyk
Jan Józef KASPRZYK (born 1975) – historian, journalist, civil servant, local government official, author of numerous publications on the history of the Second Polish Republic, president of the Piłsudski Association and vice-president of the Józef Piłsudski Institute for Research on the Recent History of Poland, long-time commander of the “Strzelec” Riflemen Association, town councillor (Warsaw) since 2002, Chief of the Office for War Veterans and Repressed Persons since 2015, one of the creators and implementers of the historical policy and memory policy conducted by the Polish government since 2015.
[1] Georg Brandes: Polska, przełożył Zygmunt Poznański, Lwów 1898, s. 31-46.
[2] Quoted from: Stanisław Konarski: O skutecznym rad sposobie i inne pisma polityczne, Wrocław 2005, s. 120.
[3] Juliusz Słowacki: Do Księcia A.C, w: Dzieła, t. XII, Wrocław 1952, s. 304
[4] Józef Piłsudski: Pisma zbiorowe, Warszawa 1937, t. II, s. 298
[5] Józef Piłsudski: Maksymy, idee, uwagi, myśli, Warszawa 2005, s. 139.
The material was created as part of the project “North and South – internationalization of activities of the Republican Foundation” co-financed by NIW-CRSO under the Civil Society Organizations Development Program for the years 2018-2030 (PROO).
