400 AGON1A
movement could provoke incalculable consequences, the Republic's only
chance of survival had been to stand absolutely motionless. Instead, by taking
one small innocent step, the King precipitated an avalanche whose accelerating
momentum engulfed the entire country in total disaster.
In those same years, the appearance of the French Revolution heightened
existing tensions in Eastern Europe. The Empires felt threatened by the forces of
Universal Revolution. Europe was dividing into armed camps. The mild-
tempered reformers in Warsaw could be denounced as disciples of the Jacobins
of Paris.^18 Not for the last time, Poland could be crushed in order that
Europeans everywhere might sleep more peacefully.
Internal developments in Poland at this time raise two peculiar historical prob-
lems. One concerns the relationship of political ideas to political action. The gen-
eration of leaders which came to prominence in the course of Stanislaw-August's
reign was exceptionally well-versed in contemporary progressive thought; yet
they failed to put their ideas to good effect. For twenty years, the journal
Monitor (1765-85) had faithfully relayed all the debates and developments of
Western Europe, regularly translating and republishing the cardinal texts of the
French Encyclopedic From 1782, the Pamietnik Historyczno-Polityczno-
Ekonomiczny (Historico-Politico-Economic Record) had systematically dis-
cussed programmes for reviving the country's fortunes. A bevy of politically
conscious writers flourished. Franciszek Bohomolec (1720-84), an editor of
Monitor, did not live to see the revolution. A former Jesuit, he devoted his later
life to the theatre, to the Polish language, and to social criticism. Ignacy Krasicki
(1735-1801), poet, satirist, translator, and Prince-Bishop of Warmia, inimitably
fostered both patriotism and anticlericalism. At once the King's chaplain in
Warsaw and a frequent companion of Frederick II in Berlin, he made his debut
in 1774 with his Hymn do milosci ojczyzny (Hymn to the Love of one's Country),
and his reputation in Myszeis (The War of the Mice), Monacbomachia (The War
of the Monks), Satyry (Satires), and Bajki i przypowiesci (Tales and Stories). The
Revd Hugo Kollataj (1750-1812), Rector and reformer of the Jagiellonian
University, was one of the ideological leaders of the Four Years Sejm and one of
the authors of the Constitution of 3 May. His 'Kuznica' (Smithy), a group of pro-
gressive, reformist politicians, actively propagated increasingly radical ideas.
The Revd Stanislaw Staszic (1755-1826), philosopher, geologist, and translator
of the Iliad, belonged in contrast to the bourgeois tradition, pioneering the field
of economic and scientific development. A physiocrat in origin, and a lapsed
priest, he became one of the most eloquent patriots and republicans of his day:
O great Nation! How long are you going to dwell in such insensitivity? Or perhaps you
intend to perish, leaving nothing behind but infamy. There is no example where a people
counting nearly twenty million, settled on the most fruitful land and endowed by Nature
with all resources, should await slavery with such complacency and frigidity .. ,^19In his Przestrogi dla Polski (Warnings for Poland, 1790) and in his Rod ludzki
(The Human Race, 1792), he fervently described and denounced the social,