An Outline of Znaniecki’s Biography and His Interest in Issues of the Nation

Florian Znaniecki was born in 1882, at Świątki farm near Włocławek in central Poland (then occupied by Prussia); from 1772 to 1918, this region did not exist as an independent state, and its individual parts were occupied by Prussia, Austria, and Russia. When he was due to start secondary school, the Znanieckis moved permanently to Warsaw (occupied by Russia) (Szacki Reference Szacki1986, 7). In the context of the subject matter discussed here, it is important to emphasize “…in particular, family education as the source for the emerging patriotism and high aspirations. The youth community of the underground self-education in the Russian secondary school in Warsaw provided the background for strengthening patriotism and directing students’ interests in Polish literature, philosophy and history” (Kowalski Reference Kowalski1987, 178). While he was home-schooled and then while he attended middle school, he was exposed to the works of Polish Romantic poets and writers such as Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki, Cyprian Kamil Norwid, Seweryn Goszczyński, and Zygmunt Krasicki (Poniedziałek Reference Poniedziałek2016, 8). In his youth, he was familiar with the concept of Messianic Romanticism, which centered on the prediction that the Polish nation, reborn due to new cultural elements, and united around its creators, language, and tradition would act as an example to other European nations. It was at that time, as Znaniecki himself mentioned, that he started to become interested in national issues in the context of Poland regaining its independence; thus, with this aim in view, he consciously supplemented his knowledge in the history and ethnography of Poland (Znaniecki Reference Znaniecki1978, 33).

The type of milieu in which he lived during his early years inevitably had a certain impact on the nation-related ideas he would later create. The fact of being a member of a nation that had lost its statehood several generations before his birth, with its roots in a distinctive culture, language, and customs, is reflected in the cultural theory of nation that Znaniecki proposed in one of the books written at the end of his life. His early interest in Polish Romanticism, as well as his personal experience as a Pole, whose nation was forced to live within three national bodies as a result of the partitions and to endure their oppression, led Znaniecki, just like other contemporary Polish sociologists, to consider the nation (rather than the society or the general population of a state) to be a macro-sociological category of fundamental importance. Indeed, he would describe the examination of national issues as one of the most important tasks in sociology (Mucha Reference Mucha2009, 21).

Znaniecki’s university education significantly influenced his later interest in national issues. From 1902 to 1903, he studied at the Imperial University of Warsaw, where he became interested in, among other topics, Polish Romanticism and poetry – and especially Romantic social thought, which defined the nation as a historical community with a common language and culture emerging from it (Dulczewski Reference Dulczewski1984, 34). He studied the works of the Polish Romantic historians Maurycy Mochnacki and Joachim Lelewel, but also those of Michal Bobrzański, a conservative historian who distanced himself from Romanticism. Additionally, Znaniecki was drawn to the writings of Wincenty Pol, Oskar Kolberg, and Jan Karłowicz – ethnographers studying Polish folk culture, as well as to ethic and anthropological studies focused on the Marxism of Ludwik Krzywicki (Poniedziałek Reference Poniedziałek2016, 8-9).

In the period of 1903 to 1909, he took various jobs. Simultaneously attending the University of Geneva and University of Zurich, he studied subjects that mainly included French philology, psychology, and philosophy; but also, sociology. At that time, he became acquainted with the works of J. G. Herder and J. G. Fichte, who understood the nation in accordance with the Romantic concept of the community of history, language, and culture. Consequently, he enriched his philosophical knowledge with the German Romantic concept of a nation, popular at that time among the intelligentsia of Central-Eastern Europe (Szacki Reference Szacki2004, 757). He also deepened his knowledge of the philosophy of culture, without which his culturalist sociology in general, and the sociology of nation in particular, would not have emerged (Szacki Reference Szacki and Szacki1995, 67). He also became acquainted with the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, which prompted him to accept the assumption regarding the primacy of spiritual values over material ones. He was confirmed in this belief while listening to Henri Bergson’s lectures in Paris (Hałas Reference Hałas1991, 9). The superior importance of spiritual and cultural values to material values as well as the fundamental role played by the creators of values in culture and society with reference to the shared conception of the past and the common language would form the essence of his future concept of nation. In Paris, he attended the lectures of Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, an anthropologist and historian of culture, who referred to Auguste Comte’s positivism; Znaniecki also participated in courses taught by Émile Durkheim, the founder of sociology as a science. The two aforementioned theoretical perspectives of classical sociology would become negative points of reference for the theoretical sociological system constructed by the Polish scholar (Szacki Reference Szacki and Szacki1995, 68).

Znaniecki’s culturalistic philosophy and sociology were significantly influenced by Romanticism. Nevertheless, an observant reader will find the influence of Positivism in his writings, especially as regards the idea of revolution, which was very common in Positivism writing. “Znaniecki, like most thinkers of his time, was absorbed by an idea of evolution” (Hałas Reference Hałas1991, 15). Through the prism of the evolutionary process, Znaniecki perceived the nation as a cultural reality. Thus, on the surface, it was not an original approach. Gustave Le Bon wrote about the nation from the perspective of biological evolution, while Marx inscribed the nation into the evolutionary trajectory of transformation within the materialistic conflict of classes. Moreover, the approach to the nation applied by Durkheim and Marcel Mauss is also evolutionary. However, Znaniecki rejected the interpretation of culture and nation as a side product of biological evolution. He also disagreed with views that the specificity and direction of evolution result from immanent forces according to the logic of history, or other regularities of social development, located outside human subjectivity. Furthermore, he objected to the idealism of a clear Kantian provenance, in which evolution was treated as a superficial process of social and cultural transformation that did not violate the unchangeable and absolute order of ideas and values.

Znaniecki drew on the idea of creative evolution introduced by Bergson, claiming that evolution is a dynamic transformation of culture, understood as a process in which new historical objects constantly emerge in addition to the already existing ones. Creative evolution is characterized by continuous development, which is caused by creative thoughts forming new words, new meanings of old words, the creation of new language, or the transformation of old language forms such as myths, stories, or poems. It also involves adding new practices and social values, or transforming old forms that are manifested in customs, conventions, and culturally specific ideas. In Znaniecki’s opinion, creative evolution can take two forms: “The first form is the intentional creation of new objects based on rational organisation of previously existing materials or tools. The second, more basic, form is an unorganised evolution of new objects through gradual differentiation of previously existing objects” (Znaniecki Reference Znaniecki1919, 119).

Cultural processes, in the words of Znaniecki, operate within the boundaries of “pure creativity and absolute causal determinants” (Znaniecki Reference Znaniecki1921, 123). As regards ontological thought, he was close to humanistic thought, in which a difference between a human and the world of natural phenomena was observable in human cultural creativity. As far as epistemology is concerned, he agreed with the somewhat Positivistic provenance of methodological naturalism, which claims that to know the human world, one must explore the causal determinants of human cultural creativity. To his mind, culture is comprised of the totality of human creativity when its material and non-material effects have meaning. The area for human cultural innovation is large, but it is limited by what has been done before by others and by the individual. Cultural innovations, by having been assigned meanings, begin their historical existence. As they become objects of a human experience, they undergo the process of objectivization, and as such, they escape a purely objective experience, creating a transactual realm of culture. In time, out of these objectifying cultural innovations, a uniform value system forms, which takes on the features of collectivity by constantly being replicated in individual experiences. As regards culturalistic philosophy, Znaniecki combined some elements of Romantic and Positivistic philosophies. His own philosophy, however, ran counter to idealism and Positivistic naturalism: the world of culture does not exist independently of individual experiences, but it is not pure subjectivity; at the same time, functioning due to objectification, it is not total objectivity, either. The works of culture, as well as of a nation, can exist because of a human experience exhibiting dual processes: subjectivizing and objectivizing.

Still, it was not only the culturalistic philosophy that influenced his sociology of nation. After his studies in Western Europe, Znaniecki worked as a librarian in the Polish Museum in Raperswil. “Working in the position of a librarian was connected to his studies on Polish emigration and de facto constituted his first professional research activity” (Dulczewski Reference Dulczewski1984, 40). Furthermore, it was there that his interests in the subject matter of nations, particularly the Polish nation, deepened. During his academic education in Paris in 1908, he directed his attention toward sociology. After returning to Poland, he started working for Towarzystwo Opieki nad Wychodźcami [Society for the Welfare of Émigrés], where he became the director and editor-in-chief of the Wychodźca Polski [Émigrés Polish Journal] magazine. It was this work that “…was the beginning of a revolution, as a result of which Znaniecki became a sociologist” (Szacki Reference Szacki1986, 22).

Although he wanted to become an academic, Znaniecki did not envisage the possibility of working in the territory of the Russian Empire. He was thinking of the United States, where he believed the opportunities for academic promotion were considerable. From the national point of view, he did not want to emigrate to another country; it was important to live only in country, where “…a quite large well-organized Polish population lived, without its intellectual leaders” (Znaniecki Reference Znaniecki1978, 38). He saw himself in such a role – a leader of the Polish national minority in the United States. In fact, the plans of the Polish scientist were realized, although by chance. In 1913, W. I. Thomas, an American social psychologist and sociologist, came to Warsaw; he intended to carry out research on immigrants to the United States. When looking for the necessary information in Poland, “In Warsaw, he found in Znaniecki an ideal conversation partner, as he knew perfectly well the issues of emigration, and he was also quite good at sociology” (Szacki Reference Szacki1986, 24). Thomas obtained the necessary information, and he promised Znaniecki cooperation and support with starting academic work in America. In July 1914, Znaniecki left for the United States; and in August of the same year, World War I broke out, which caused him to stay there until 1920 (Sitek Reference Sitek and Bokszański2002, 364).

He created his social theory by incorporating some elements of Polish Romanticism and German humanistic concepts; he also drew ideas from methodological naturalism as well as from Bergson’s philosophy. While in the United States, he was brought closer to the ideas of social pragmatism, which, similarly to the schools of thought mentioned here earlier, influenced his philosophical and sociological writings, among which was his theory of nation. He intended to connect the most crucial elements of the aforementioned schools of thought, creating a new philosophy and theory of society which eliminated the weaknesses of the other theories. A theoretical system called “culturalism” by Znaniecki himself was the effect of his efforts to synthesize many concepts. At that time, he encountered a theory very popular at that time: a theory of the American nation as a melting pot, where elements of ethnic cultures and emigrant groups melt together creating a new cultural phenomenon; one which integrates social prisoners who are led by the feeling of citizen patriotism (Fenton [2003] Reference Fenton and Chomicka2007, 109-124). That concept bore a marked similarity to the idea of a political nation which existed in Poland before the partitions by Russia, Prussia, and Austria beginning in 1772; a political nation which is formed by ethnically diverse noblemen “melting” into that newly created Polish culture (Walicki Reference Walicki1977, 12-13). Znaniecki had based his theory of nation as melting pot on his examination of Polish history, and his intuition was proven correct by his observation of American reality (Kurczewska Reference Kurczewska1979, 20).

The first American period marked a turning point in Znaniecki’s research career. In Chicago, together with Thomas, he started pioneering research on Polish peasant migrants. This resulted in the publication, begun in 1918, of a monumental, multi-volume monograph, The Polish Peasant in Europe and America [Chłop polski w Europie i Ameryce], which was based on studies that used the biographical approach (Dulczewski Reference Dulczewski1979). This work, which became one of the best-known publications of Polish sociology, made him world-famous. Volume V of The Polish Peasant addresses the issue of the development of national consciousness by Polish emigrants abroad. Consequently, it is justifiable to claim that this was the first Polish empirical publication in the field of the sociology of nation (Szczepański Reference Szczepański1967, 474). His stay in the United States, lasting slightly more than 5 years, had a major effect on his further academic career and his life history. It was at that time that a type of Polish scientist “…finally transformed […] into a sociologist and, at once, a world-famous sociologist. It was the effect of The Polish Peasant, a work written in cooperation with Thomas” (Szacki Reference Szacki1986, 24). It was also then that Znaniecki’s interest in ethnic and national issues finally became strengthened; this occurred due to his interest in the emergence of Polish ethnic groups in the United States, and their assimilation processes – and from this perspective, his interest in the development of the American nation.

Although his research career had started abroad, Znaniecki nonetheless returned to Poland. The return was caused by many factors, which probably included difficulties with professional and research stabilization, and problems with his personal Americanization (Dulczewski Reference Dulczewski2000, 203-206). However, one of the major causes for his return to his homeland was Poland’s regaining of independence in 1918. Znaniecki believed that the patriotic duty of a member of the Polish nation was to return to the mother country and to join in the creation of Polish statehood in the field of science (Szacki Reference Szacki1986, 27). Thus, he decided to return to Poland in 1919.

Toward the end of the 19^th century and at the beginning of the next, two concepts of nation clashed in Polish discourse. The first one assumed that the Polish nation would be a multi-ethnic community of citizens who, while preserving their ethnic characteristics, could integrate due to the nature of Polish culture. This concept drew on the tradition of a nation of noblemen, which existed before the partitions. The other concept saw only ethnic Poles as those forming the national community, and it excluded the possibility of creating a multi-ethnic nation, politically and culturally, in the time of the Polish revival (Porter-Szűcs Reference Porter-Szűcs and Nowakowska2011). Discussions about the model of a Polish nation became animated following Polish independence. After his return to the country, Znaniecki began to analyze public discourse, pointing to the first concept of nation as the one that reflected his liberal political views, and would constitute a foundation for a future sociology of nation authored by him (Znaniecki Reference Znaniecki1978, 44-45).

After his return to Poland, Znaniecki was employed at the University of Poznań, where he became a professor 1 year later. In Poznań, he organized a center for sociological education and research, in the position of Chair of Sociology and Philosophy of Culture, a department which he headed. He also became involved in educating young academic staff, published works, and developed an interest in national issues. The Poznań period marks the most creative time in Znaniecki’s life. “This is the chapter richest in achievements in his biography, less abundant in significant life events, but filled with creative work and growing recognition in Poland and abroad” (Szacki Reference Szacki1986, 28). In each of his texts written at that time, he referred to the subject matter of nation, although the publications were not specifically devoted to this issue.

Starting his academic work in Poland, Znaniecki found that significant ethnological and sociological research on the nation had already been achieved. The subject matter of nation and the peasant issue were central research problems of sociology in the inter-war period (Mucha Reference Mucha2009, 17). The nation topic, so typical of the sociology of that time, resulted from specific conditions: namely, the functioning of a nation deprived of statehood, and then the existence of the multinational Second Republic of Poland. In the Polish sociology of the time, a notional category of nation dominated the category of society, which affected the development of the national school of Polish sociology (Tarkowska Reference Tarkowska and Posern-Zieliński1995, 105). Znaniecki knew and valued the richness and innovation of the works of previous and contemporary Polish researchers on the nation. He claimed that “…thanks to many Polish historians, ethnologists and sociologists, probably more books and papers concerning the problems of the nation were written in the Polish language than in any other language” (Znaniecki [1952b] 1990, 10).

Permeated by the specific intellectual habitus of the Polish sociology of that period, Znaniecki gave the subject matter of nation a prominent place within the discipline. He expressed this view in his publications, initially in scattered fragments included in texts devoted to other subject matters, and later in a work devoted only to this problem. The importance attached to the problems of the nation is also demonstrated by the fact that since the academic year 1927–1928, when sociology became an independent field of study at the University of Poznań, the sociology of nation was taught as a separate subject (Kraśko Reference Kraśko2011, 24). Znaniecki was fully devoted to scientific teaching and organizational activity in the field of sociology, without any involvement in political activity. In his understanding, the education of sociologists, as well as the elites raising Polish society, in which he was successful, was to “…contribute as effectively as possible to the reconstruction and growth of the nation and the country” (Dulczewski Reference Dulczewski1984, 254).

Although he considered himself a patriot, returning to Poland for patriotic reasons, he felt alienated from the common nationalism of the day. In the 1930s, in The Second Polish Republic, racist nationalism, which saw a nearly organically created community of mono-ethnic individuals as forming the Polish nation, became dominant in public discourse and in political practice (Porter-Szűcs Reference Porter-Szűcs, Dzierzgowska and Dzierzgowski2021, 168-174). Znaniecki explicitly opposed it. As he wrote: “Although in my life Polish national ideology was of a very high importance, my mind is certainly less nationalistic than the mind of any individual Pole, Italian, German, Russian or American known to me” (Znaniecki Reference Znaniecki1978, 44-5). The sociologist’s aversion to nationalistic attitudes is evidenced by his protest against the “numerus clausus”, restrictions on the number of Jewish students admitted to universities in Poland, which was a law introduced by the ruling nationalists. He opposed the “ghetto benches” at universities in the 1930s: that is, when anti-Semitic lecturers and members of nationalist student fraternities forced Jewish students to be placed in separate and isolated areas of lecture halls (Dulczewski Reference Dulczewski1984, 263).

In the late 1930s, the nationalistic elites of The Second Polish Republic followed the politics that discriminated against minorities, which at the time constituted just over 31% of the citizens of Poland. That politics was directed not only at the Polish Jews (approximately 10%), but also at Ukrainians, who were often subjected to brutal repressive measures and actions aimed at their assimilation (Porter-Szűcs Reference Porter-Szűcs, Dzierzgowska and Dzierzgowski2021, 225-251). Znaniecki opposed such politics and he expressed his disapproval in two ways. First, being a liberal, he viewed the discrimination against Polish citizens who were also members of ethnic minorities as an assault on personal freedom, which is a basic human value. It weakened, in his opinion, the power of Poland, the strength of which was dependent also on its multi-ethnic character. Second, he viewed that discrimination as a sign of civilizational backwardness because, according to his philosophy and sociology, in cultural evolution the forming of a national culture in a multi-ethnic nation is a sign of progress. The forming of a national community merely by following the idea of mono-ethnic community is a return to lower stages of progress and, as such, is a civilizational regress (Znaniecki Reference Znaniecki1968, 29-31).

Znaniecki left for the United States again in the summer of 1939, and his employment as a visiting professor at Columbia University was arranged once more by Theodore Abel. The outbreak of war found him in America; and so, Znaniecki’s third and final emigration period began (Szacki Reference Szacki1986, 32). In 1940, he brought his family from Poland, moved to work at the University of Illinois-Urbana, and in 1942 was granted American citizenship. He was employed by that university until he retired in 1950. He did not return to his homeland mainly because of the change of political order in Poland (Szacki Reference Szacki1986, 32). Two years after his retirement, he published the most important (in fact only) book to provide a systematic survey of the culturalist sociology of nation: Modern Nationalities: A Sociological Study of How Nationalities Evolve – whose Polish translation, Współczesne narody, was published as late as 1990. It was one of Znaniecki’s most important works; and it should be emphasized that the study, being the presentation of his own sociological concept of the nation, was “…the result of studies carried out for 35 years” (Szacki Reference Szacki1986, 33). Znaniecki died on 23 March 1958 in the United States, in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois.

Znaniecki’s Definition of Nation

In the introduction to Modern Nationalities, Znaniecki wrote that the concept of nation is very difficult to define precisely. He stated that the problems in defining this key term of the subject matter were caused by its ambiguity, which affected its various understandings in different languages and cultures, as well as a multitude of derivative designations, such as nationality, nationalism, or patriotism (Znaniecki [1952b] 1990, 8-14). A nation, as he claimed, is one of the types of society, being a conglomerate of social groups, the main nation-forming force of which lies in culture. Znaniecki was inclined to state that a nation, as a type of cultural society, fulfills a significant part of the aspirations and interests of its members; while those aspirations and interests are expressed in the types of activities and social values describing and described by the cultural resources specific to that nation (Kilias Reference Kilias2003, 76). He pointed out that a nation is “…a human community with some common distinguishing cultural features (language, customs, historical tradition, etc.), sometimes also racially different, occupying a specific geographical space” (Znaniecki [1952b] 1990, 10). The definition proposed by Znaniecki reflects the personal experience of being a member of a nation without a state, which persisted despite political adversity, by expressing itself in a language or customs that referred to the past. In this proposed view of the nation, one can also find a reflection of Znaniecki’s education and philosophical interests in the field of Polish and German Romantic philosophy: in particular, referring to the issues of culture and values. It also reflects the specificity of the humanistic sociology of the researcher: thus, by defining sociology as the science of culture, and applying the culturalist approach, it locates the problems of the nation within a wider range of cultural and social phenomena. “Znaniecki’s cultural concept of nation was formulated in opposition to the prevailing theoretical perspectives in sociology at that time. In fact, it is much closer to certain philosophical approaches. Although Znaniecki’s argumentation, in this case, was addressed against the sociology of Comte, Spencer, and their successors, it was undoubtedly fully applicable to all those systems of social thoughts (considering Johann Gottfried Herder as their patron), in which the place of Society was taken by Nation” (Szacki Reference Szacki, Znaniecki and Dulczewski1990a, LX). Therefore, his vision of the nation grew out of the tradition of Romantic literature, since the same approach to writing about the nation was used by many Polish and Central and Eastern European Romantic thinkers, as well as J.G. Harder and J.G. Fichte, as previously mentioned. A significant part of Eastern and Central-Eastern sociology of the classical period and the first decades of the 20^th century treated these issues in a similar manner (Mucha Reference Mucha2009, 21). In Poland, many researchers perceived the nation as a community based, to a large extent, on culture (Ziółkowski Reference Ziółkowski2005, 83).

A cultural approach to the nation was formulated by the Polish classical sociologist, in opposition to the quite popular (at that time) racial and biological concepts of nation. This type of understanding of the nation – ascribing membership of the nation to ius sangusnis (right of blood), which resulted from the community of origin – was then common in everyday thinking, popular in political discourse, and known to numerous contemporary social thinkers; including, of course, sociologists (Kłoskowska Reference Kłoskowska2005, 17; Fenton [2003] 2007, 32). Znaniecki, rejecting such ideas, claimed that a nation is in no way a product of nature, but is, above all, a cultural phenomenon. Although he used the notion of race as the smallest type of an endogamously formed primary social group, which is actually connected by bonds of biological affinity, he stated that such groups lose their importance due to the development of civilization, as a result of assimilation and amalgamation processes. In nations, there can be seen certain remnants of racial distinctiveness (in the understanding of race as the primary group of origin), but they do not constitute significant distinctive features of the nation; rather, they remain from the processes of their formation. These groups, in turn, were formed from social groups that were previously created by tribal groups, which included earlier clan groups and primitive groups. Opposing naturalists, he pointed out that the nation is a product of “…civilisation, and not a natural entirety, like a swarm of bees or an anthill. Its base is neither biological nor geographical; nor is it based either on the racial solidarity of individuals, originating from common members and sharing common organic characteristics, or on external ties imposed on the residents by the common natural environment” (Znaniecki Reference Znaniecki1921, 57).

Znaniecki also questioned another view that was popular in the social thought of the 19^th century and in his times – namely, the identification of nation with state. Equating the nation with the state society had been widespread in Western European sociology since the times of Comte and Herbert Spencer (Mucha Reference Mucha2009, 21-22). Znaniecki emphasized that identification of the state with its community, an idea derived from the philosophy of Comte and Spencer, is a mistake. Znaniecki emphasized that the state is an institution of a political nature, an organization based on power; its population is a political community. A nation, although it demonstrates, just like a state, a high degree of organization, is not an institution; rather, it is a set of integrated social groups (a national society) bound by a common culture that is created and promoted by cultural leadership. Although a nation as a collection of social groups and a state as a political institution frequently overlap, these are separate entities. A nation and a state can function together, but they do not have to, as nations can exist without the state. Znaniecki thus invalidated the theory of Karl Marx, who, referring to Hegel’s idea of people without history, wrote that historical nations (i.e., “true nations”) are those which have their own states, or had them for a long time in the past. Nations without states, as non-historical nations, were not real nations for Marx (Marx/Engels [1849] Reference Marx, Engels and Szachter1963, 320).

Sharing Max Weber’s view, Znaniecki claimed that a nation is based on subjectively felt solidarity toward others perceived as members of the same nation; however, this solidarity, referring to the shared values, is based on culture, and does not have to have a political background. This is the basis for the creation of the national consciousness, which is not a false consciousness, as is national awareness defined by Marx; rather, according to the principle of humanistic coefficient, it should be treated as real and genuine, becausethe activity and social values based on the national culture have a deep significance for individuals.

Znaniecki believed that a community of solidarity, a social group of a cultural nature “…consisting of a hundred thousand or even a million people participating in the same culture, can exist for a longer time without common political authority” (Znaniecki [1952b] 1990, 3-4). He used the example of Poland, emphasizing that the nation can exist without the state, and vice versa. He wrote, not without malicious satisfaction: “…we [Poles – note by J.P.] have in this respect exceptionally convincing experiences, which protect us from the error commonly made by sociologists of the West until the World War, of joining a national and state group in the notion of nation” (Znaniecki [1952b] 1990, 367). Znaniecki claimed that a nation is a unity of culture, a sense of mutual solidarity between its members, and a social organization (Znaniecki [1952b] 1990, 33-34). He treated the nation as a community “…socially and culturally organized, with a common literary language as the main component of national culture” (Mach Reference Mach1993, 98). Thus, he proposed his own, culturalist approach to the nation.

Cultural Evolution, or the Process of Emergence of the Nation from the People

Nation should be viewed from the perspective of creative evolution, since as a cultural reality it is not a stable and unchanging entity, but a process-based and dynamic phenomenon. This is a long-term evolution process, which is characterized by a shift of social forms from groups of people to nation. Therefore, Znaniecki claimed that the existence of a nation is preceded by the existence of people. Thus, what are “people,” according to the sociologist studied in this article? They are humans initially formed by clan groups, which, by entering into numerous alliances with each other, form tribes, which share a similarity of genetic features – this being the main mechanism for achieving social unity. Tribes that are able to stabilize their internal organization, permitting them to endure over time and produce their own cultural foundations, are transformed into a people, who function as a social group. Groups of people are generally very small and internally not very complex in structural and cultural terms (Znaniecki [1928] [1973] Reference Znaniecki2001, 15). Peoples “…usually tend to prevent strangers from participating in social ties” (Markiewicz Reference Markiewicz2009, 218). They are characterized by a drive toward invariability and uniformity. Within groups of people, uniform “…moral, family, religious or economic models” are imposed on all their members (Kuczur Reference Kuczur2008, 21). People are characterized by cultural homogeneity, social isolation, and functioning based on tradition. Here we can see that Znaniecki’s views are close to the anthropological approach to such groups, as proposed by Bronisław Malinowski ([1947] Reference Malinowski2001).

As a result of creative evolution, a social change takes place, “…which separates a national society from people” (Szacki Reference Szacki and Brenon1990b, 73). The institution which starts the social unification of a group of people within a territorial group on a political basis can be called a state. It unites the group of people occupying a given territory, and unifies it within a political framework of groups characterized by territorial proximity, but not always cultural similarity. However, sometimes nations begin to emerge “…from a simple clustering of a certain number of people, which often happens – although not always – with the help of the state that was able to unify communities of people territorially close in terms of culture” (Znaniecki [1934] Reference Znaniecki1974, 18). Nationhood, therefore, means unification into a single social group under one culture, when the state, as an institution, can realize the idea of social unity. Before the unification of groups of people into one nation, a common cultural foundation of the nation has to be created, on the basis of which this unification can take place. Znaniecki claimed that the national culture produced permeates the whole life of the nation; it leaves its mark on social activities and relations, and affects ideals, values, and traditions. Malinowski viewed the nation as a cultural reality in almost the same way (Malinowski [1947] Reference Malinowski2001, 252).

Znaniecki wrote that the nation-forming process is related to the emergence of “…a relatively small social nucleus, whose influence was gradually expanding and eventually included millions of people. People making up part of this nucleus are not appointed by any organized authoritative group, such as the state government, church hierarchy, or an association composed of members of the economically dominant class” (Znaniecki [1952b] Reference Znaniecki and Dulczewski1990, 44). This nucleus consists of some special individuals that form the culture of the nation. Znaniecki did not share the naturalistic view presented by Le Bon ([1902] Reference Le Bon and Ochorowicz1999, 146-157), according to which individuals of certain concentrated, cumulative but nationally typical biopsychical features embody in their activity the specific spirit of the nation, and thereby awaken psychobiological features of the nation that remained in a latent state within each of its members.

The belonging of individuals to the above-mentioned social nucleus derives from specific social roles they fulfill in the groups of which they are members. These are persons performing the social roles of intellectuals, artists, poets and writers, or researchers and scientists – particularly humanists – who create the content of the national culture. Znaniecki refers to them as “cultural leaders” (1990, 44). Therefore, the content of the national culture does not have to be created and promoted by bureaucratic state officials, as Weber postulated (Weber [1922] Reference Weber and Lachowska2002, 313). National leaders produce and promote the content of culture, popularized and assimilated by masses that begin to identify with it. In such an approach, in the cultural dimension, the nation is “…a mental construct created in the heads of national leaders, and through their actions, instilled into the whole society” (Krawczuk Reference Krawczuk2007, 197).

Znaniecki depicted culture comprehensively, embracing within its scope “…all products of human activities, as well as all those activities that active human individuals learn from other working human beings” (Szacki Reference Szacki, Znaniecki and Dulczewski1990a, XVI). They are the products of human creativity which become transactual due to the mechanism of objectivization, a characteristic of the process of cultural evolution; they become subjectivized in human awareness thanks to the experiences made possible by the granting and then by the recognizing of the meanings assigned to cultural products. However, as Znaniecki wrote, culture is not a simple gathering of facts of awareness “together with its material reconstruction and results. Culture is composed of many systems, smaller or larger, less or more unified, constant or changing, but they all have their objectivity and their inner order” (Znaniecki Reference Znaniecki1936, 6). Although culture is created and sustained by human activity, it is important to point out that it exists even if nobody is aware of it at the time (Znaniecki [1928] [1973] Reference Znaniecki2001, 173-174). Cultural phenomena are, therefore, not as much of a psychological as of a phenomenological nature.

Culture, therefore, includes material and symbolic components. National culture becomes a composite of common cultural values and is accessible to members of a people’s community group. In order for the common, relatively specific culture to become a principle of distinctiveness of the nation, there must emerge intellectual leaders. By fulfilling their new social roles, surrounded by people’s groups, these leaders perform social actions aimed at creating new social values, through drawing on the resource of folk culture that they find, or creating completely new content. Acting in this manner, they create and promote four main ideas, on the basis of which they create the culture of the nation. These are: (1) ideas of national integration, according to which similar groups of people must form a single nation; (2) national mission, according to which it is claimed that a nation has been chosen to preserve and protect its culture as a model for others; (3) national progress, the idea that a nation must constantly improve and promote its values; and (4) national independence, which is the claim that a nation should have its own state (Znaniecki [1952b] Reference Znaniecki and Dulczewski1990, 61).

Artists and intellectuals are of particular importance; if the state exists within the boundaries in which a nation emerges, they are supported by the representatives of the political elites and middle-level political officials. In Cultural Sciences, Znaniecki wrote: “The concept that the entire Italian people or German people form a uniform community, bound by shared historical past, shared contemporary culture and shared future interests was in each case started by a few cultural leaders, poets, historical, ideologists and exerted an increasing effect as it spread among intelligentsia, lower levels of urban population and peasantry; however, it took centuries for its effect to become strong enough to overcome political divisions” (Znaniecki Reference Znaniecki1952a, 150). The creative evolution of culture, driven by the activity of national leaders, and forming a nation through the integration of people’s groups, is a dynamic and historical process, extending over centuries. The national leader’s characteristics resembled those of Nietzsche’s “Ubermensch”. Znaniecki attributed above-average creative abilities to the leaders, along with a feature of character similar to the superman’s willpower, which helps to create new ideas and values, as well as to implement them by initiating collective actions.

Leaders of national culture try to popularize in any way possible the ideals and content they create; and if they can instill them into a larger number of members of various groups of people, the members themselves will care about maintaining the ideas and models of national culture. The culture of the nation becomes the source of the sense of national solidarity (identity). However, it can also be a source of conflicts with other nations, because, as a rule, their members treat those ideas, values, and models of their own national culture as better than those typical of other nations (Znaniecki [1928] [1973] Reference Znaniecki2001, 396). Znaniecki claimed that national leaders emerged because it was possible for new types of social roles to be created in the world of increased migration and the popularization of the printed word, which made common communication possible; or in the context of the progressive decline of Catholic universalism, which had maintained the order in pre-modern Europe. The main role in the nation-forming process, when taking the form of creative evolution, is played by national leaders, who create the nation by constructing and popularizing the canon of national culture. In this case, according to the anthropological models of the epoch, which Znaniecki followed in his works, culture cannot be understood as a whole system of activities, material products, and meanings; it is rather a set of symbols, myths, and stories, which, due to their national character, also play a political function (Kurczewska Reference Kurczewska and Eliaeson2006, 349).

National culture, although it is created by people’s cultures, differs from them in quality, because it is characterized by other ideas and contents, even if they are the result of the transformation of people’s ideas and contents. National culture, unlike people’s culture, is not socially uniform. The culture of the people’s group includes all its members in a uniform set of behavioral patterns or material products, while national culture is differentiated with regard to the previously indicated characteristics of various social groups. In contrast to the people, seen as a culturally homogeneous social group occupying a limited space, the culture of a nation, resulting from the integration of social groups, is territorially diversified. Znaniecki, therefore, did not want to claim that the overall culture is created for everybody; he believed that a nation unifies its fragments, referred to as a “cultural canon” (Ziółkowski Reference Ziółkowski2005, 88). Starting from the anthropological view of culture, Znaniecki definitively rejected the possibility of the existence of a uniform, non-differentiated culture, shared by all members of the nation, as Malinowski saw it (Malinowski [1947] Reference Malinowski2001, 252).

One of the most important roles played by national culture is that of creating, maintaining and developing national consciousness (Znaniecki [1952b] Reference Znaniecki and Dulczewski1990, 46). National leaders promote a national culture among the masses, who – through their interaction with it – gradually develop national consciousness. This evokes the feeling of identification with the nation, and an illusion of the existence of a uniform culture that describes the specificity of the nation, perceived as a culturally monolithic group. Just like Weber’s conception, classical Polish sociological thought assigned national consciousness an important role in developing the feeling of group solidarity, which was vital in the nation-forming processes. National consciousness is created through people’s participation in the transformation of their cultures into the national culture, or through the adoption of entirely new content.

Repeating to some extent the statement common at that time, Znaniecki observed that national culture not only creates national consciousness, but also forms a national character. This, as the specific correlate of culture, can only be understood through the prism of cultural communities. The sociologist did not postulate searching for, as in the case of basic personality structures, a mental pattern, or an archetype shared by all members of the nation. Rather, he focused “…on institutions, collective behaviours (ways of life, rituals, customs, religious practices) norms, values and social interactions. In other words: on learned behaviours, cultural determinants of those behaviours, and relations between the meaning attributed to them and the social and cultural context” (Kubiak Reference Kubiak2007, 153). Znaniecki assumed that what is mentally shared – that is, the national character – is reflected in social institutions and models of interactions, values, and norms.

Nation and People: Differences and Mutual Relations

Within the state, and with or without its support, due to the popularization of uniform culture, the abovementioned unification of peoples in the nation takes place. As a result of creative evolution, in which the national cultural content is created and communicated to the masses, a nation emerges. Although Znaniecki introduced the concept that the nation is created after the development and popularization of national culture derived from peoples’ cultures, the researcher who popularized this view of the nation in world studies was Karl Deutsch. In Nationalism and Social Communication: An Inquiry into the Foundations of Nationality (1966), Nationalism and its Alternatives (1969), and Tides among Nations (1979), Deutsch refers to the theory of modernization based on social evolutionism: this states that due to social and economic transformation, there is an increased need for communicative unification in a society that is shifting from traditional to modern forms.

Reading the Polish thinker’s texts concerning the nation, throughout his academic legacy, we must always bear in mind not only the foundations of a humanist-oriented sociology, of which he is one of the intellectual founders, but also the culturalist concept of creative evolution he proposed. Superficially, it would seem that his theory is quite close to Deutsch’s theory, presented several years after the American edition of Modern Nationalities was published. However, these are different theories, in terms of the dimension of the adopted ontology of society. Znaniecki wrote: “After the little-known stage of primitive communities and groups of poor and non-unified cultural heritage, there begins a stage of people’s civilisations, from which national civilisations emerge […] Civilisation absorbed or destroyed more primitive forms of cultural and social coexistence, of which only small remains were left. In turn, in modern times, national civilisations absorb or destroy people’s civilisations at an increasing rate” (Znaniecki [1934] Reference Znaniecki1974, 18). Forming a uniform national culture creates nations, which are different from communities in terms of quality. “A characteristic feature of national communities is openness, pluralism and proselytism” (Puczyński Reference Puczyński2014, 226). In groups of people, there is social and cultural isolation, homogeneity, and the targeting of most activities toward one’s own group. Znaniecki drew “…a clear distinction between abstractive nation, belonging the modern epoch, the culture of which is based on writing, and other (using modern terminology) ethnic groups that do not use this medium” (Kilias Reference Kilias2003, 77).

Nations absorb both their people’s groups and foreign national groups, assimilating them. Unified at the level of culture, they are able to be internally varied in terms of the dissemination of certain selected values or ideas. However, they usually complement each other, to form a single, albeit diversified, entity. New systems, models, and cultural ideas are created within the nation; but they are not contrary to the overall national pattern. Additionally, they must contribute to its development, because a nation is a social group of expansive nature, whose development often takes the form of forcing people’s groups to enter into the bounds of the nation and its culture. This may also apply to the expansion aimed at absorbing and subordinating other national groups. Groups are not possessive or expansionist, and are focused on continuation, rather than on development that would expand the scope of their presence and functioning.

Absorbed cultures, in general, do not cease to exist. They stop developing, yet still function within their confines, despite the nation’s existence – often as its local or regional variation, which differs from the standard model, although in some ways contained within it. The nation enables “…individual development and accepts diversity, as a result of which the most outstanding individuals creatively act for the nation, even if they originate from the people. While the national civilisation falls, cultures can survive, but they are situated on a lower level, which makes it possible for them to construct a national civilisation” (Kuczur Reference Kuczur2008, 22). The process of the emergence as well as the decline of peoples, their transformations and reformulation, is practically never-ending, because a nation is constructed and reconstructed through numerous, constantly ongoing processes. It is not, according to Znaniecki “…something taken for granted, but is being constantly created and developed” (Przybyło-Szlachta Reference Przybyło-Szlachta2014, 131).

Creating, promoting, and disseminating culture, as the social process for creating the nation, requires social organization (Ziółkowski Reference Ziółkowski2005, 89). For Znaniecki, these features determine the reality of each national community. What is important, then, is not only the institution and functions of national leadership, which are performed by creators of culture; but, also, the formal and non-formal institutions that are entrusted with the task of preserving the cultural heritage of the nation, creating and disseminating its content, and being separate from state institutions. The state, along with its institutions, is also involved in the process outlined above, in the case when a specific nation functions within the state which is its national state. Through the social organization of the nation, it is possible to creatively develop one’s own national culture, through active participation in the cultural sphere, as well as in the spheres of the economy and national politics; this participation ensures the development of national societies (Znaniecki [1952b] Reference Znaniecki and Dulczewski1990, 206-249). People’s groups occupy a lower level of social organization; they develop neither formal institutions and organizations, nor formalized legal codes. They are based on customs and traditional customary law, as well as on the system of non-formalized social institutions. A nation is, in a way, a cultural amalgamate, a melting pot in which, with the impactful support of cultural leaders and specialized institutions, some elements of the ethnic cultures of a nation’s groups merge. That statement is representative of a historical idea of a multi-ethnic nation of noblemen of The First Polish Republic from the times before the late 18th-century partitions. One can also notice here an echo of Znaniecki’s personal experiences from his visits to the United States, where the idea of the melting pot was extremely popular.

National Societies: Between the Conflict and the Overall Human Population

A nation demonstrates qualities that differentiate it from a people. Znaniecki claims that nations are sets of social groups with a shared national culture; he refers to this type of group configuration as a national community. When they emerge, they are not frozen in their primary form, but are subject to internal processes and enter into numerous relations with the external environment, including other national communities. The process whereby national communities expand, due to their natural development, leads to conflicts between nations. The probability of conflict increases when “…a given nation deliberately aims at expansion at the cost of another nation, or when expansion of one nation is an obstacle to the expansion of another one” (Znaniecki [1952b] Reference Znaniecki and Dulczewski1990, 168).

The first type of potential conflict can refer to the relation between the state as a political institution and the nation as a cultural community. Here, Znaniecki seems to act as a philosopher addressing issues of civilization (Hałas Reference Hałas1991, 123). In one of his books, Upadek cywilizacji zachodniej (The Fall of Western Civilization), he observed that, in the civilization dimension, the greatest achievement of the West was the development of the democratic national ideal. He claimed that the state and the nation are not the same. Specifically, the state as a political institution can manage the territory inhabited by various social, ethnic, or national groups. Its power can mean oppressive dominance, and the state dominates a nation or nations that have been formed within it. Numerous conflicts then emerge between the institution of the state and the nation; in Znaniecki’s opinion, this had been witnessed in Europe at the beginning of the modern era, when developing nations entered into conflicts with the political power of paternalistic states of the late medieval feudal order. However, sometimes the nation as a cultural group with (or without) the support of the state starts to generate – with the use of a political factor – social solidarity, which it constantly seeks to strengthen. At such a time, the state is subordinated to the nation as a tool, and it is the nation, rather than the state, that becomes the highest form of the social entity (Znaniecki [1921] Reference Znaniecki2013, 15). Repeating the theme constantly present in the Polish social thought of the Romantic era, Znaniecki claims that this kind of subordination of state institutions to the community, following the national ideal, occurred in the case of Poland during the First Republic. These kinds of relations can, in his view, constitute a model for other countries. In this overtly positive opinion about the relations of a country and a noblemen nation as an example to others, we can identify an idea popular among Polish intelligentsia, one which can be referred to as Polish messianism (Kizwalter Reference Kizwalter1999, 299). The messianic myth about a Poland that brings independence to other countries and nations spread among poets and writers, but was also referred to by scholars (Chwalba Reference Chwalba2000, 150). Znaniecki was one of those scholars.

Nations develop their own ideals, which differ from each other because they were developed in different conditions. A common and normal phenomenon is a certain competition between nations characterized by different ideals. The classical Polish sociological view was that, since the second half of the 19^th century, the democratic ideal of national community had started to deteriorate in Western civilization. Some national leaders excessively promoted cultural features of their own nations, using the institution of the state for this purpose. With its support, they also formed masses according to the notion of what Znaniecki calls “racial imperialism.” Such national leaders can, therefore, be referred to as nationalists. They glorify the primacy of their nation, which is superior in all respects to others. They express the view that the institution of the state is identified with the nation, and because it plays controlling and securing roles, as well as protecting the exceptionality and cultural superiority of the nation, the latter should be subordinated to the state. Znaniecki observed this in the exuberant nationalism of the nations of Europe, particularly in its Russian and German versions, with their attempts to assimilate minority nations of Central and Eastern Europe, and to subordinate nations inhabiting other states. This would inevitably lead to conflicts between nations dominated by racial imperialism. The racial imperialism of nationalists exploits an ethnicity which is to act as the heart of a nation’s community. According to Znaniecki, it is a sign of civilizational backwardness since the concept of nation, understood as a large social group with cultural characteristics and formed in the process of cultural evolution, is a sign of progress; it is a higher step on the ladder of that evolution. He observed signs of such backwardness also in Poland, where nationalistically oriented government saw a community of citizens as simply mono-ethnic (Znaniecki Reference Znaniecki1968).

Znaniecki distinguished four types of expansion of a conflict-generating nature, namely: economic, geographic, ideological, and assimilation expansion (Lewandowski Reference Lewandowski2005, 368). He observed in Modern Nationalities that the processes of growing internal national solidarity and national expansions would not be impeded. He noted that it could not be “…expected that conflicts occurring between them will cease to affect political relations between states as long as their governments are composed of and supported by people indoctrinated and brought up in national loyalty” (Znaniecki [1952b] Reference Znaniecki and Dulczewski1990, 204). The growing internal social and cultural cohesion of nations causes external conflicts between nations, the frequency of which is directly related to their earlier-mentioned racial imperialism (Znaniecki [1921] Reference Znaniecki2013, 62). When nations close themselves within national states, they start to compete and then openly fight against each other.

Znaniecki appears here as an interesting and inspiring theoretician, addressing a conflict taking place on a macro-structural level. Of course, this conflict can also take other forms, such as in terms of class, expressed in various kinds of revolutions; initially, for instance, the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia. However, it has also taken national forms, such as in World War I. By creating an innovative theory of the nation-state, national state – other national state relations, Znaniecki becomes an important classical thinker regarding the sociology of nation. He discards his role as a theoretician and analyst, to become a philosopher of civilization development, projecting visions of the future. It is sufficient to mention, for example, Durkheim, who predicted the end of national conflicts at the moment of creating an international order based on the ideals of the Great French Revolution (Durkheim Reference Durkheim and Giddens1986, 204); or Marx, who predicted that nations after the proletarian revolution would cease to pose a social problem, since, as a manifestation of false consciousness, they would simply disappear along with it (Marx/Engels [1848] Reference Marx, Engels and Filmus1962, 518).

Znaniecki believed that the degeneration of the ideals of national communities, leading to the emergence of the state of racial (national) imperialism, would end with the crisis of Western civilization, manifested in destructive conflicts between nation-states. Contrary to Weber, he believed that conflicts between such states are wrong and can be prevented (Weber [1919] Reference Weber, Kopacki and Dybel1998, 131). However, he rejected the possibility of improving Western civilization in this dimension through the proletarian revolution, the abolition of the institution of the state, or introducing an internationalist order or a form of cosmopolitism. Rather, he proclaimed the possibility of creating universal human civilization as a sustainable form of social and cultural integration of humanity, with the possibility (and even the need) to preserve the national identities. Znaniecki claimed that “…active intergroup [international – note by J.P.] conflicts can be successfully prevented only by active intergroup cooperation. Mutual isolation does not bring any effects, and it is not possible at all in the contemporary world” (Znaniecki [1952b] Reference Znaniecki and Dulczewski1990, 205).

In Ludzie teraźniejsi a cywilizacia przyszłości (The present people and the future civilization), he predicted that this cooperation, aimed at preventing conflicts, would lead to the emergence of an order which would not be international, but universal. This civilization would not only “…save everything that is worth saving in national civilisations but will lead humanity to the level beyond the wildest dreams of the Utopists. [It will contain – note by J.P.] not only elements common to all national civilisations, but also elements most precious for various national civilisations” (Znaniecki [1934] Reference Znaniecki1974, 21-22). This civilization will be humanistic and not naturalistic, free from any conflicts and antagonisms; it will be an optimal balance between the freedom of individual creativity and group requirements. On the other hand, cultural identities of individual nations will be preserved, but a supranational consciousness will emerge, which will not interfere with the national one; on the contrary, national identities will be contained within it and will enrich it (Markiewicz Reference Markiewicz2009, 221).

Global civilization will abolish neither national cultures nor national languages, because it is through them that the values of nations and differentiation between them are expressed to the fullest extent (Kubiak Reference Kubiak2007, 318). Znaniecki wrote: “Sooner or later, most probably, a certain common system of verbal symbols facilitating mutual communication between nations will be introduced, but it will certainly not replace national languages, whose uniqueness increases the originality of their creative works, past, present, and future (Znaniecki [1952b] Reference Znaniecki and Dulczewski1990, 221). He predicted that a universal human community, composed of various nations, but sharing a common system of values, and partly a common culture, would be formed. Thus, the civilization of the future would be a unity in diversity. It would be tempting to say that, in taking the role of a philosopher of civilization, who described a potential course of development for national societies in the context of a possible supranational order, Znaniecki became the precursor of thinkers who are enthusiastic about globalization processes, by creating a vision of a universal order that emerges above the nations while preserving their specificity. Views of this type have been reflected, for instance, in the ideology of European federalists. Such optimism was characteristic of many intellectuals who considered the evolutionistic idea of progress. Znaniecki also recognized as much, but it was cultural evolution that he focused on.

On the Importance of Znaniecki’s Sociology of Nation

Znaniecki’s scientific achievements, recorded in both the Polish and the English languages, place him among the greatest authorities in the field of cultural sciences, especially in sociology (Hałas Reference Hałas1991, 123). His work is also noteworthy in the area of the sociology of nation, as he developed an intriguing and prolific cognitive-culturalist theory. In his concept, he distinguished between the state as a political institution organizing the life of social territorial groups, and the nation as a cultural group, organized upon cultural values as a principle of distinctness. He analyzed and described multiple relations between the state and the nation. Differentiating this second type of people’s social organization, he tried to oppose the political concept of the nation. The claim that a nation is a cultural phenomenon has a second polemical meaning, as it places his theory in opposition to all nationalistic visions of the nation. A nation is for him also a historical phenomenon, since it emerges through creative evolution, causing the emergence of a national culture that is initiated by national leaders, and is sustained and dynamized by the activities of members of various social groups who are included in nation-forming activities and values. This multi-thread and multi-layered concept makes it possible to avoid the pitfalls of single-factor reductionism and scientific simplification, which can be found in the sociology of nation in both the past and present times.

Obviously, it does not mean that, by creating his sociological theory of nation, Znaniecki managed to avoid intellectual shallows and traps. On the one hand, his roots in the Polish, or more broadly, Central and Eastern European context, allowed him to consider national issues as important and independent research problems within sociology. The perception of the nation as a phenomenon in the cultural sphere, which can function separately and independently of the state, was a new cognizance in the global sociology of the time. On the other hand, this clearly leads him to the position of naïve culturalism, where an excessive role in the genesis of nations is attributed to cultural phenomena. Additionally, he can be accused of reproducing Central and Eastern European clichés, since the fact that nations were operating in the sphere of culture within multinational empires that had functioned in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries had been taken for granted by numerous scholars from this region of Europe (Kilias Reference Kilias2003, 82). Most scholars that represented country-less nations of the region defined nation as a community of cultures, often comparing their own communities with those of the dominating countries in which they lived and which, in their mind, undermined them. Czechs saw a threat in Germans, who, in their view, were denationalizing them, Slovacks saw that in Hungarians, Poles in Russians and Germans, just to name a few (Waldenberg Reference Waldenberg2000; Hroch Reference Hroch and Pańko2003).

The claim that the nation is not a political community, but a cultural one, reduces the spectrum of national phenomena to only one manifestation. The absence of the topology of nations (which would potentially enrich the theory), resulting from eliminating the possibility of the existence of political nations, shows this claim’s obvious weakness. In this dimension, it gives way to the often justly criticized theory of Hans Kohn (Reference Hans1944), who popularized the distinction between the political (Western) nation and ethnic (Eastern) ones.

Znaniecki is sometimes inconsistent in his culturalism, since it seems that he reduces national culture to a set of ideas and political symbols, while the actions of national leaders are often directed toward the achievement of political goals. Referring in his theory to the experience of the Polish nation, he often notes that the development and persistence of national culture is meant to serve the purpose of regaining the nation’s statehood and implementing a democratic national ideal within its framework (Szacki Reference Szacki, Znaniecki and Dulczewski1990a, XIV-XV). Moreover, a reference to the example of Poland as a cultural nation can be misleading, given that from the Middle Ages until the end of the 18^th century, the Polish nation, or the proto-nation, functioned within the institution of the state. It can be assumed that, at that time, a noble political nation developed, enriched by an ethnic component, and only after the loss of statehood could it begin to develop solely around ethnic and cultural themes (Burszta Reference Burszta2013, 186-196). Znaniecki could also be accused of following the intellectual trends in the sociology of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Like almost every other contemporary sociologist, Znaniecki incorporated his theory into the scheme of transition from gemeinschaft (people) to gesellschaft (nation), which takes place through evolution. Nevertheless, it should be admitted that he described this evolutionary transition by departing from the scientific patterns prevailing in his times, integrating them into the wider scheme of culturalist theory.

A careful reading of Znaniecki’s publications, whether fully or in fragments devoted to the subject matter of nation, leads to the supposition that contrary to what he was trying to suggest, national culture does not cover the entire spectrum of phenomena and cultural objects. It is rather “…more narrowly understood political culture! It gains a national character through political myths and symbols, such as the cult of heroes, creating a community of national history. Although Modern Nationalities also mentions the language and culture, their national importance consists not only in the mere fact of their existence, but rather in their function of the symbol embodying the unity of the nation” (Kilias Reference Kilias2003, 73).

Znaniecki deserves to be treated as a classic sociological thinker, a highly talented scholar, who created an ambitious theoretical system that was important for the development of the discipline. Knowledge of his sociology is inexcusably deficient outside of Poland, considering that he developed a mature theoretical system and laid the foundations of many detailed sociologies, including the sociology of nation described in this study. “Undoubtedly, the decline, started in 1938, of the Chicago School spirit of sociology practised in America, which was close to the viewpoint presented by Znaniecki, the dominance of the structural and functional direction in the sociological theory and in the research, and the monopoly of quantitative methods, contributed to the marginalisation of Znaniecki’s achievements” (Hałas Reference Hałas1991, 10). National issues could not find their place in the mainstream of functional structuralism, and were lost in the remote periphery of sociology; this situation did not help to promote Znaniecki’s theory of nation. It could be maliciously stated that, in the American sociology of that time, which set the trends for the global development of the discipline, two essays by Parsons, which did not contribute much to the sociology of nation, were better known than Znaniecki’s numerous works devoted to the subject.

The cultural theory of the nation, with its empirical basis in the Central and Eastern European experience, was not treated with due attention on account of being seen as, to some extent, exotic. The specificity of this part of the world, unknown to American and Western European science, expressed in a scientific theory, was evidently not considered worthy of attention, because according to the logic of intellectual colonialism, it was sociology – or more broadly, Western social sciences – that were considered valuable and worthy of practicing (Gouldner Reference Gouldner1977, 20). A sociology of nation that referred to the Central and Eastern European social reality, written by a representative of the Central and Eastern European sociology – even if that individual had worked in the United States – did not deserve to be recognized as fully scientific (Mucha Reference Mucha2009, 10).

In the first decades of studies on the concept of the nation, the works of Weber and E.C. Hayes were usually referred to as more adequately reflecting Western European experiences. When the American version of Modern Nationalities was published, it was followed by the popularity of the theories of Deutch and Kohn, which were embedded in social evolutionism and affected by Western European ethnocentrism; this determined the theoretical canon of studies on the nation for many decades. Additionally, Znaniecki was not included in Anthony Smith’s monograph Theories of Nationalism, published in 1971 and reprinted many times; this is one of the best-known and most valued books in Western European sociology (particularly in English-language sociology), systematizing and describing theories of the nation and nationalism. This omission contributed to the neglect of Znaniecki’s achievements.

The works by the classic Polish sociologist are better known in Poland, and this applies also to his concept of the nation. Znaniecki’s theory of the nation had perhaps the greatest influence on his student Józef Chałasiński, who created his own variety of culturalism, and presented his ideas in the publication titled Kultura i naród (Culture and Nation) (Chałasiński Reference Chałasiński1968). A slightly different theory that referred to the original culturalist concept of the nation was proposed by Antonina Kłoskowska (Reference Kłoskowska2005) in Kultury narodowe u korzeni (National Cultures at the Grass Roots Level). However, even with regard to Poland, a certain inactivity regarding national issues can be observed, which was related to the absence of the Polish translation and publication of Modern Nationalities, published in the United States at the beginning of the 1950s (Kowalski Reference Kowalski1987, 176). Nevertheless, in the sociologist community, recognition and respect for this work devoted to nations were “…long-lived after World War II, despite severe attacks [on him – note by J.P.] in the Stalinist period from the supporters of the authorities” (Kwaśniewicz Reference Kwaśniewicz2001, 239).

From the end of the war to the early 1980s, Polish scholars explored Znaniecki’s work on nations through independent reading of his Polish and American texts, or indirectly through some of Chałasiński’s publications. In the mid-1980s, the works of this classic sociological thinker became the subject of specialist analyses presented in monographs by Zygmunt Dulczewski, Jerzy Szacki, and Elżbieta Hałas, cited in the text. Modern Nationalities was published in Poland in 1990, followed by the translation and publication of other works by Znaniecki. In 2005, one of today’s best-known works relating to the sociology of nation was published: Kultury narodowe u korzeni by Kłoskowska, written in the field of cultural theory poetics. Currently, no increased interest in Znaniecki’s works is being observed in Poland, except among historians of sociological thought. The culturalist theory of Znaniecki is surprisingly rarely used in the Polish sociology of nation. It is compelling to refer again here to the observations presented in the introduction to this study, stating that Polish sociologists of nation, while remaining in close contact with the theories of nation originating in American and Western European social sciences, are often unfamiliar with the works of their native intellectual ancestors. Thus, in sociology, apart from Polish academia, Znaniecki’s works devoted to the issue of nations remain almost unknown.

Summary

Throughout his creative life, Znaniecki consistently built his analytic sociology system, successfully combining a heuristically sophisticated and logically coherent theory with data originating from empirical studies and historical examples. This forms the structure of the culturalism-oriented theoretical system of humanistic sociology. One of the elements of this structure is his concept of nation, which can be fully understood only with reference to his entire theory. The approach to the Polish nation as a cultural phenomenon also reflects the specific experience of Znaniecki’s socialization in the Polish national culture; the carriers of which, as members of the nation, were forced to function within it while lacking the institutional protection of their own national state. Moreover, we should not forget Znaniecki’s philosophical education at the academic level, which affected the theoretical solutions reached by the author. The cultural, relativist, processual, interactionist, and anti-naturalistic sociology of nation proposed by Znaniecki has been appreciated to some extent in Poland, and yet has gone almost unnoticed in world sociology. It is worthwhile calling attention to his work, describing its specificity, discovering the sources of its intellectual inspiration, and spotlighting themes which, despite the passage of time, can still be successfully applied in studies on the phenomenon of nation – especially the nations of Central and Eastern Europe.