Where Is Poland? | Strategies of resistance

Chapter 2

Strategies of resistance

Lacking their own state institutions, the Poles created new, alternative ones, which were illegal or enjoyed only a narrow scope of freedom. They also tried different ways of outsmarting the restrictions imposed by the occupying powers.

The Pictorial Book for Reading and Writing by Konrad Prószyński, 1887. Photo: Polona.pl

Work at the Foundations

After two unsuccessful uprisings, a new generation of intellectuals – known as the positivists – begin to develop the concept of ‘organic work’. Rather than armed struggle, it focuses on building the 'civilizational resources' of the future Polish state, by way of establishing institutions, associations, educating society, as well as bolstering the economic development of the country. The positivists believe that trying to get ahead in the civilizational race is the only effective way of vying against the occupying powers.

This pragmatic strategy first developed in Prussia, where people such as Karol Marcinkowski supported the development of Polish culture and industry. Marcinkowski founded the Bazar Hotel, which became the main centre of economic and educational activity in the Prussian Partition. It was here that Hipolit Cegielski, who later laid the foundations of Polish industry, got his start. The strategy promoted agricultural education, the establishment of libraries and the reading of Polish books and magazines.

In the Russian-held partition, the positivists endorsed what they called ‘work at the foundations’, which meant focusing on society, especially the education of workers and peasants, and thus strengthening the nation in its entirety. Activists set up a network of illegal rural schools. According to a Russian commission’s report in 1901 on the level of literacy in Vistula Land: ‘Secret teaching (...) has reached 33% of the country's population and the majority of peasants owe their reading and writing skills to such secret tuition’.

Young people set up secret self-education groups, where in their free time they studied the history of Poland, read novelties from the outside world, such as the works of Darwin and Marx, as well as forbidden pieces by classic and contemporary Polish authors, relating to current events.

The positivists placed their faith in science, which thrived thanks to such organisations as the Mianowski Fund, supporting the research work and publications of Polish scientists.

Positivist writers objected to the concepts of insurrectionism and the Romantic national philosophy, instead re-defining how they viewed patriotism. Bolesław Prus wrote:

True patriotism is not just about loving an ideal fatherland, but loving, studying and working for the real elements of this fatherland: the land, the society, the people and all their wealth.

Drzymała moving his wagon through Grodzisk. Source: Wikimedia Commons

How to Outsmart the System?

In the face of the ruthless Germanization and Russification, Poles were often forced to resort to the most elaborate strategies of resistance. One of the most famous examples of non-violent resistance is the history of Wojciech Drzymała. He was a Polish peasant from the Grand Duchy of Poznań, who for almost four years fought a legal dispute with the Prussian authorities over permission to build a house on a plot of land he had bought. According to the laws then in force, which expropriated the Polish population in the Wielkopolska province, doing so was illegal. Facing such circumstances, Drzymała instead bought a circus wagon and dwelled in it. He moved the wagon a little bit every day, arguing that a mobile vehicle was not subject to the building regulations. And even though Drzymała was eventually forced to remove the wagon, his story became a powerful symbol of the struggle against Germanization in the German Partition.

Drzymała's counterpart in the Russian Partition was Konrad Prószyński, a teacher and the son of an exile to Siberia, who successfully opposed the Russification of Polish children. As he was unable to find a Polish reading primer to teach from, he painted such a text with lime on the wall of a house, which villagers were passing on their way to church. It was later printed in 5000 copies. In 1875, Prószyński published the first Polish primer for self-education purposes – no assistance of a professional teacher was required. Within five years, one hundred thousand copies were sold. His next book won the global primer competition organised by the London Pedagogical Society in 1893.