In considering the concept of “Pole-Catholic,” it might well be asked not if it had real grounds but in what circumstances it was constructed. Although the Polish national identity in its current shape was “Catholicized” mostly in the twentieth century, the previous age—the nineteenth century—as a time of constant struggle for political independence has been regarded as having the most formative effect on Polish national imagination. This article discusses an important moment in the construction of the concept “Pole-Catholic.” It shows that far before the idea of Roman Dmowski (from the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries), who claimed that only a Catholic was a good Pole, the strong identification of Polish nationalism with Catholicism had been insistently articulated by Polish conservative groups. The discourse of the Catholic Polish nation appeared in (and even dominated) the debate on the Italian Risorgimento. Between 1848 and 1871, discussing the Italian—papal conflict, the conservatives created their religious programme for Poland and took advantage of the popularity of the Italian national movement among Poles to promote it in their writings. Their equation of Polishness with Catholicism appeared to leave a strong trace in the formation of the Polish identity and continues to inform the way in which Poles are perceived nowadays.
Poles themselves struggle with their "Catholic label," and it still arises in important political discussions. On the topicality of the issue, see Genevieve Zubrzycki, "We, The Polish Nation: Ethnic and Civic Visions of Nationhood in Post-Communist Constitutional Debates," Theory and Society 30, no. 5 (October 2001).
2.
Catholicism as a faith distinguishing Poles from Russians and Prussians and the Church being a repository of Polish language and tradition in the nineteenth century are most often mentioned. E.g., Rett Ludwikowski, "Polityczny rodowód stereotypu Polaka-katolika," Zeszyty Naukowe UJ. Studia Religiologa 3 (1978); Zygmunt Zieliński, "Mit Polak-katolik," in Polskie mity polityczne XIX i XX wieku, ed. W. Wrzesiński (Wrocław, Poland: Wydaw, Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 1994).
3.
Ettore Anchieri, "L’atteggiamento della stampa polacca verso il moto unitario italiano (1859- 1862)," in Relazioni tra Padova e la Polonia. Studi in onore dell’Università di Cracovia nel VI centenario della sua fondazione (Padova, Italy: Editrice Antenore, 1964), 286; Stanisław Kalembka, "La presse polonaise sur la question de l’unification de l’Italie dans les annees 1985-1861," Rassegna Storica del Risorgimento 1 (1986); Stanisław Kalembka, "Raz jeszcze o stosunku pasy polskiej do kwestii zjednoczenia Italii," in Toruńskie Studia Polsko-Włoskie, Studii polacco-italiani di Toruń, ed. Andrzej Tomczak (Toruń , Poland: UMK, 1986); Bogusław Cygler, "Wielka Emigracja wobec problemu likwidacji władzy doczesnej papieża w latach 1849-1862," in Religia chrześcijańska a idee polityczne, ed. Bogumił Grott (Krakow, Poland: Nomos, 1998).
4.
Anchieri, ""L’atteggiamento della stampa ," 286.
5.
See, e.g., Jan Wszołek , Prawica Wielkiej Emigracji wobec narodowego ruchu włoskiego (przed rewolucją 1848 roku) ( Wrocław, Poland: PAN, 1970 ).
6.
Some authors claim that the adage of being Polish meaning being Catholic was already an oversimplification of the ethnic and religious makeup of Poland in medieval times. See, e.g., R. Taras, "Poland’s Transition to a Democratic Republic: The Taming of the Sacred?" in The Secular and the Sacred: Nation, Religion and Politics, ed. W. Safran (London: Frank Cass, 2003). Many authors look for the origins of the identification of Poland with Catholicism in a prepartitioned Poland-beginning with the patriotic preaching of the Jesuit Piotr Skarga (around 1597) that greatly influenced Polish collective identity. Then, an important role is attributed to the first time when most of the territory of the country fell prey to a non-Catholic invader-the invasion of Poland by Protestant Sweden (1655). The Swedes failed to take the monastery on Jasna Góra, which from then on played the role of a national sanctuary. It is believed that soon Poles started to view themselves as the only country in northeastern Europe that guarded Christianity. A decisive role in consolidating this belief was the victory of Jan III Sobieski at Vienna (1683). Many Poles regarded their throwing back of the Turkish invasion as a unique contribution to Europe. Waldemar Chrostowski, "The Suffering, Chosenness and Mission of the Polish Nation," Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe 10, no. 3 (1993).
7.
Making an assumption that the attacks on Catholicism in Western Europe gave rise to a strong and innovative opposition, these authors remarked that, while not denying the specificity of national experiences, the mobilisation of both anticlerical and Ultramontane camps should also be analyzed in a pan-European and comparative perspective. The absence of the Polish and Irish cases (which usually go together; e.g., Eric John Ernest Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780 [New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990], 67) in their volume is explained by the fact that both nations were deprived of their sovereignty and thus clung to Catholicism to give them a sense of unity. Consequently, these countries, according to Clark and Kaiser, did not have a strong anticlerical opposition. Christopher Clark and Wolfram Kaiser, eds., Culture Wars: Secular-Catholic Conflict in Nineteenth-century Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
8.
This idea was represented mainly by Jan Nepomucen Janowski and Seweryn Goszczyński. The phrase was used by the latter in "Moralna podstawa sprawy polskiej. Katolicyzm, czyli popizm," Pismo Tow. Dem. Pol. (1840).
9.
One more political conservative group was involved in the articulation of the idea of "Pole-Catholic," but it is not considered here since not all its members agreed with this concept. In fact, Hotel Lambert-the group we refer to-was strongly divided as to the stance Poles should take toward the temporal power of the pope and Italian policy. Beyond any doubts, politicians such as Władysław Zamoyski and writers such as Walerian Kalinka promoted the identification of Poland with Catholicism by sharing the belief that "hardly can anybody be called a Pole if he doesn’t combine his love for Fatherland with love for the faith." Walerian Kalinka, Przegrana Francji i przyszłość Europy (Krakow, Poland: 1871), 5. The ‘Pole-Catholic’ idea was for them ‘the best defender of Polishness shielding Poles from the violence of oppressors." Walerian Kalinka, "Względy polskie w sprawie władzy świeckiej papieża (1860)," in Dzieła, vol. 4, ed. Walerian Kalinka (Krakow, Poland: Księg. Spółki Wydawniczej Polskiej, 1894), 115.
10.
Stefan Kieniewicz and Henryk Wereszycki, "Poland under Foreign Rule 1795-1918 ," in History of Poland, ed. Aleksander Gieysztor, Emanuel Rostworowski , Janusz Tazbir, and Henryk Wereszycki (Warsaw, Poland: Polish Scientific Publishers, 1968), 550.
11.
Michał Jaskólski, Konserwatyzm-nacjonalizm. Studia nad konfrontacjami ideowymi konserwatyzmu krakowskiego i demokracji narodowej przed 1914 r (Krakow, Poland: UJ , 1989), 124-25.
12.
Apart from articles and reports published in the newspapers Czas, such as Maurycy Mann’s "The Two Treaties" (1856), "The Immediate and Subsequent Effects" (1856), "Moscow and Rome" (1856), "The Necessary Changes" (1857), "The Peace of Villafranca" (1859), "After Marengo" (1859), "Conferences and the Treaty of Zurich" (1859), "The Changes of the System" (1859), and "The Difficulty of Changes" (1860), and Przegląd Polski, mainly a series titled "Political Review," they addressed Polish Catholicity in the context of Italian affairs in many individual brochures. For example, Maurycy Mann, within a very short period, published three brochures on the situation of the papacy in the emerging Italian state. Three of these had almost identical titles: "About the Church State’s Cause" (1859), "To the Church State’s Cause" (January 1860), and "In the Church State’s cause" (May 1860). Jan Prokop Leszczyński, "A Few Words about the Temporal Power of the Pope" (Krakow, Poland: 1860).
13.
Stanisław Koźmian, "Przegląd Polityczny," Przegląd Polski2, no. 7 (1867): 226.
Stanisław Tarnowski, Z doświadczeń i rozmyślań ( Krakow, Poland: Drukarnia "Czasu,"1891), 2.
17.
Tarnowski, Studya polityczne, 146.
18.
Jan Koźmian, Sprawy włoskie w związku z teraźniejszością (Leipzig, Germany: 1848).
19.
Jan Koźmian , "Czym jest dla Polski sojusz z rewolucją moskiewską a czym sojusz z radykalizmem europejskim," Przegląd Poznanski34, no. 373 (1862): 121-28.
20.
In fact, Koźmian could achieve his aim only by skilful interpretation of the ideas of the aforementioned Italian moderates.
21.
Władysław Kulczycki, "Polska i Włochy wobec Piusa IX," Przegląd Poznanski28 (1859): 550.
22.
Włodzimierz Czacki, List o Polsce i Państwie Kościelnym (Geneva, Switzerland: A. de Chateauvieux , 1860), 5-6.
23.
Władysław Kulczycki, "Papiestwo i aneksja," Przegląd Poznanski30 (1860 ): 52.
24.
Włodzimierz Czacki, Rome et la Pologne ( Brussels, Belgium: S.N., 1864), 6.
25.
Warownia Krzyża 3-4 (1870): 72.
26.
Włodzimierz Czacki, List o Polsce, 75.
27.
The brochure was first published in Przeglad Lwowski 1, no. 10 (1871): 459-68.
28.
Zygmunt Ludwik Dębicki, Europa w chwili pogromu ( Lviv, Ukraine: S.N., 1871), 2-3.
Edward Podolski, Pius IX. Obrońca Polski (Lviv, Ukraine: 1879), 31. In the original, "Tylko pod krzyżem, tylko pod tym znakiem / Polska jest Polską, a Polak Polakiem." The author possessed highly developed propaganda skills; his book, in a vivid and very positive style, convincingly presented Pius IX as acting against all powers (mainly Russia) to help Poland.
32.
Warownia Krzyża 1-2 (1870): 76; and Warownia Krzyża 3-4 (1870): 67.
33.
Zygmunt Golian , "Ostatnie pismo księdza Goliana w sprawie papieskiej," Przeglad Poznanski2 (1860): 315.
Bogdan Szlachta explained this by conditional Occidentalism of the Ultramontanes, which was gradually reduced to the papacy as the epitome of morality. Although they criticized Western Europe for its gradual rejection of Catholic morals, they identified Poland with the Western civilisation and contrasted it to Eastern (Russian) civilisation.
38.
"Dziennik Czas o Ojcu Swietym i Rzymie," Przeglad Poznanski36 (1863): 136; Hieronim Kajsiewicz, "Nauka X. Hieronima Kajsiewicza o władzy doczesnej papieża", Przegląd Poznanski30 (1860): 243.
39.
Włodzimierz Czacki, Rome et la Pologne, 99.
40.
This issue will be dealt with in subsequent research. There was a big polemic in Polish historiography on the extent to which the Russian ambassadors misinformed popes about Polish insurrections.
In fact, there were two countries: the Papal State and Turkey. Moreover, the papacy accepted later decisions of the Congress of Vienna and so basically acknowledged partitions of Poland.
44.
Norman Davies, "Polish National Mythologies," in Myths and Nationhood , ed. Geoffrey Hosking and George Schopflin (London: Hurst, 1997), 146.
