Eastern or Central Europe? [Volume: 7(1988), pp. 253-269]

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ENDRE BOJTAR
of interdependence. It is sufficient to remember linkages such as the
Croatian-Hungarian-Austrian, the Serbian-Hungarian-Turkish-Russian, the
Czech-Slovakian-Hungarian-Austrian-German, the Byelorussian-UkrainianPolish-Russian, the Byelorussian-Lithuanian-Polish-Russian, the LatvianEstonian-German-Russian, etc., etc., where the "lower links of the chain"
could always be used against one another. Thus had evolved the atmosphere
where the justified fear of raw force was allied with crude tactics and
short-sighted opportunism: whom do we hope will return to us Transylvania,
the Highlands, Lwow-Lvov-Lviv-Lemberg, Vilnius-Wilno, Macedonia, etc.,
etc.
The history of the so-called Polish Kingdom vividly exemplifies, in
almost naked reality, the possibilities of action in Eastern Europe. The
state, brought into existence by the Vienna Congress of 1815, was in name
only in a personal union relationship with Russia. Otherwise, it had a twohouse National Assembly, a constitution, an independent government,
judiciary, the right to the exclusive use of the Polish language, even its
own armed forces. After the disorder and destruction of two decades of
war institutionalized order was beginning to take shape, and everything
held out the promise that the country will at long last become Europeanized. The stubborn political fight for the realization of the rights
guaranteed by the constitution, and the relatively calm spiritual atmosphere-one sign of which was the fact that, exceptionally in Polish history,
the more significant intellectual resources did not emigrate-was accompanied by unequivocal material progress, and the economy became the
realm of the bourgeoisie. For example Warsaw, having doubled the number
of its inhabitants in only 15 years, became at this time a center befitting
the real capital city. On the other hand, all of this: self-sufficiency, independence, and national peculiarity were mere appearance. The Tsar, who
was at the same time the Polish king, had the right to veto the decisions
of the National Assembly, which could assume a position only in matters
of proposals submitted to it, but could not propose motions by itself.
The independence of the armed forces was just as nominal as that of foreign
policy. The national rights, embodied in the constitution, were trod on
by the Tsar's Regent, his younger brother, the Archduke Constantin, as
well as by the notorious Pole-hater, the chief chinovnik, senator Novosilcov;
the same Tsarist regime that was supposed to be-according to the text-one
of the trustees of the constitution; partly for the reason that they could
not permit the rise of the kind of "liberalism" in Poland that might seem
as a persuasive and realized model to reformers within the "mother country."
Lies permeated the whole fabric of life: every slap in the face had to be
accepted with a smile, the mighty brother's suffocating embrace had to
be reciprocated with love. This rose-colored terror was represented faithfully by Mickiewicz in the "Ancestors," when Novosilcov gives a ball,
and the guests, "invited" by force, are required to partake in charming