Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T19:05:48.716Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Poles as an Integrating and Disintegrating Factor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2009

Henryk Wereszycki
Henryk Wereszycki
Affiliation:
Jagellonian University, Cracow
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The question of whether the Poles were an integrating or a disintegrating factor within the Habsburg monarchy has yet to be fully studied by Polish historians. Up to now they have concerned themselves mainly with the part played by the Austrian empire in the history of the Polish nation after the eighteenth century partitions and have overlooked the role of the Poles in the Austrian empire. They have concentrated their attention on the fate of the territories of the historic Polish state which fell under Habsburg rule and have studied the social, cultural, and political transformations which affected Galicia during the century and a half of Austrian domination. Polish historians have even studied the contributions made by former Habsburg subjects to the reconstruction of the Polish state after the dissolution of the monarchy, but they have rarely discussed the part which the Poles took in the political life of the multinational empire.

Type
The Czechs and Poles
Information
Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , January 1967 , pp. 287 - 313
Copyright
Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 1967

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See Žáček, Václáv, Ohlas polského povstání r. 1863 v ČechachGoogle Scholar [The Echo of the Polish Uprising of 1863 in Bohemia]. In Prace Slovanského Ústavu v Praze, Vol. XIV (Prague, 1935)Google Scholar; and Žáček, Václáv, Čechové a Paláci roku 1848. Studia k novodobým polityckým stykům česko-polakýmGoogle Scholar [Czechs and Poles in 1848. Studies on Modern Czech-Polish Political Contacts]. In Prace Slovanského Ústavu v Praze, Vols. XXII and XXIII (2 vols., Prague: Nákladem Slovanského Ústavu a Slovanského Výboru Československa, 1947–1948).Google Scholar

2 See my “Dzieje Galiciji jako problem historyczny” [The History of Galicia as an Historical Problem]. Małopolskie Studia Historyczne, Vol. I, No. 1 (1958), pp. 4–16.Google Scholar

3 Kohn, Hans, The Idea of Nationalism. A Study in Its Origins and Background (New York: Macmillan, 1948), p. 329.Google Scholar

4 Horoszkiewicz, Julian, Notatki z życia, [Notes on My Life] (Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1951), p. 18.Google Scholar

5 Ibid., p. 71.

6 In 1863 Emperor Francis Joseph wrote his mother: “In Galizien geht es schon recht schlecht[;] … allein ich bin ganz ruhig, denn ich habe dort Mensdorff [the commander of the army] und die Bauern, die auf das erste Zeichen die Ruhe, wenn auch nicht auf sehr zarte Weise, herstellen würden.” Schnürer, Franz (ed.), Briefe Kaiser Franz Josefs I an seine Mutter 1838–1872 (Munich: J. Kösel and F. Pustet, 1930), p. 329.Google Scholar

7 Kann, Robert A., The Multinational Empire: Nationalism and National Reform in the Habsburg Monarchy 1848–1918 (2 vols., New York: Columbia University Press, 1950), Vol. I, p. 36.Google Scholar

8 Beust, Friedrich F., Aus dreiviertel Jahrhunderten (2 vols., Stuttgart: Kröner, 1887), Vol. II, p. 427.Google Scholar

9 In a letter sent from Vienna on July 29, 1870, Les origines diplomatiques de la guerre de 1870–1871, Vol. XXIX (Paris: Henri Charles-Lavanzelle, 1931), p. 300.

10 Kann, Robert A., The Habsburg Empire. A Study in Integration anil Disintegration (New York: Praeger, 1957), p. 21.Google Scholar

11 Zwitter, Fran, Šidak, Jaroslav, and Bogdanov, Vaso, Les problèmes nationaux dans la monarchie des Habsbourgs (Belgrade: Comité Nationale Yougoslave des Sciences Historiques, 1960), p. 146.Google Scholar Zwitter goes on to state: “Cependant, le légitimisme ne suffit pas pour expliquer la longue existence de la monarchie. Pour certains mouvements, surtout chez les Allemands et les Magyars, la monarchie représente un moyen pour atteindre d'autres buts. Pour les autres, elle représente le moindre mal en comparaison avec les dangers qu'apporterait sa dissolution.” Ibid.