THE GROWTH OF THE MODERN NATION IIThe fact is: the modern Polish nation is the end-product of modern Polish
Nationalism. Its growth has proceeded erratically for nearly two centuries, and
its ultimate success was far from certain for most of recent history. The exact
date at which it assumed a preponderant role in the affairs of the Polish lands is
a matter for dispute. Some historians see the decisive moment in 1864, when a
measure of social emancipation attended the national demonstration of the
January Rising. Others would delay it to the Rebirth of the Polish state in 1918.
The most rigorous observers would argue that the national process could not be
regarded as complete until a homogeneous Polish population, uniformly con-
scious of their national identity, took undivided control of their own national
territory. That point was not reached until 1945.^7
In so far as general histories of modern Europe mention Poland at all, they usu-
ally turn their attention to the one and only theme which ever exercised the
minds of the statesmen of the day, namely to The Polish Question'. Like its part-
ner, The Eastern Question', this subject has appeared on countless conference
agendas, and on all students' examination papers, of the last two
centuries. In Polish minds, too, it assumed overbearing proportions. According
to the oldest joke in the ambassadors' repertoire, the Polish candidate at an
international essay competition on 'Elephants' produces a piece entitled The
Elephant and the Polish Question'. One can say without exaggeration that of all
the animals to be found in the diplomatic garden of modern Europe The Polish
Question' is indeed the elephant, if not the dodo.
For diplomats, of course, and for those who supplied the diplomats with their
information, the disposition of the former Polish lands was not without
significance. During each of the great continental wars, the territory of parti-
tioned Poland formed an area of actual or potential instability, whose ultimate
fate was repeatedly called into question. At each of the main peace conferences- at Vienna in 1814-15, at Paris in 1919-20, and at Yalta and Potsdam in 1945 -
Poland's future was discussed and debated at great length. In between the wars
and conferences, from Prince Czartoryski's Memorial in 1803 to the project for
Polish-Czechoslavak Federation in 1943, formula after ill-fated formula was
invented in attempts to reconcile the demands of the Polish people with the
interests of the ruling Powers. For 150 years, the Polish Question was a conun-
drum that could not be solved, a circle that could never be squared. In that time,
it generated mountains of archival material and oceans of secondary literature.^8
For the historian of Poland, however, the Polish Question is a singularly
barren subject. Very few, if any, of the diplomatic memoranda concerning
Poland's future ever exerted a decisive influence on the course of events. Many
of them, like Prince Czartoryski's Memorandum, remained a dead letter.^9 Some,
like the Polish-Czechoslovak Project, were killed by the politicians.^10 Others
were simply ignored. The most important of them did nothing but express the