Polonofobia jako strukturalny składnik rosyjskich doktryn imperialnych

Polonofobia jako strukturalny składnik rosyjskich doktryn imperialnych. „Prace Komisji Środkowoeuropejskiej PAU”, Polska Akademia Umiejętności, 2009, t. XVII, s. 29-44., 2009

Elements of Polonophobia (anti-Polonism) are encountered exclusively in this area of Russian political thought that is connected with nationalism of an imperial type. In the 19th century the starting point of this trend was F. Tiutchev’s doctrine, who perceived Poland as an obstacle to the realisation of a providential vision of the unification of the Slavic world in an eschatological empire; Poland’s collapse was a necessary, though painful ,,sacrifice of Iphigenia”. The works of other conservative nationalists, such as M. Pogodin, J. Samarin or A. H ilferding show the problem of Poland mainly within the frames of the fight of the cultural character of the west provinces threatened with Latinisation: these territories should be deprived of the so-called
Polish element so that they should be able to reunite with Russia. I. Aksakow simply suggests ,,moving Poles beyond the Bug River”. Poland is a pathological creation that has yielded to Westernisation;
therefore its re-Slavisation is necessary and this can be done e.g. through the dissemination of an alphabet based on Cyrillic in the whole Slavic world. First of all, Polish internal dilemmas should be resolved by the isolation of Slavic people from the Occidentalised nobility and Latin
clergy. Furthermore, N. Strachow in his famous article A Fatal Case presents Polish motivations to reject the Russian mission: the feeling of civilizational superiority. The actual de-Polonisation of
west provinces, i.e. of West Belarus, Lithuania and West Ukraine became the task for eager administrators, like M. Muravyov or the Milutin brothers, although Russian central authorities dissociated
themselves from the anti-Polish propaganda campaigns.
After 1863 anti-Polish ideas gained special popularity due to the January uprising and M. Katkov’s aggressive ,,realistic” policy that showed Poland as Russia’s main rival in the civilisation mission in Slavic territories. An unfavourable picture of Poland is presented also in Pan-Slavists’ writings, e.g. N. Danilevski, who sees Poland as a negated vision of the united Slavic community. Already in the 20th century P. Kovalyevski claimed that the incorporation of Poland had had disastrous
effects because of the incorporation of the so-called hostile elements connected with a bacillus of Jewishness. In contemporary Russia, nationalists devote less attention to Poland, but a good
example of anti-Polish attitudes, similar to Kovalyevski’s arguments, is opinions expressed by J. Muchin, who pointed out that one should not be surprised by Poland’s turning to NATO: treacherousness
and disloyalty towards the Russian mission of freedom have always been characteristic of Polish foreign policy.