THE GROWTH OF THE MODERN NATION 27Mazzini's Young Italy. As a principal officer of the TDP's Centralizacja, or 'Co-
ordinating Committee' he had been designated to lead the abortive insurrection
of 1846, but appeared instead as the chief defendant of the Berlin Trial. He was
sentenced to death, but was reprieved at the eleventh hour by the outbreak of
revolution in Prussia. In 1848—9, he headed the insurrectionary forces first in
Posen, then in Sicily, and later in Baden. In the 1850s he fomented a schism in
the Polish Democratic Society, antagonizing the left-wing revolutionary demo-
crats no less than the conservative Hotel Lambert. In 1863, he returned to
Poland, fought in Kujawy, and briefly acted as 'dictator' of the Rising.
Thereafter he earned a meagre living in exile, writing as a historian and publi-
cist. His lifetime of conspiracy and sacrifice brought no definable benefits to
Poland. In the words of a respected historian of the period, 'Mieroslawski loved
his country dearly, and caused it untold harm.'^25
In one sense, however - and some would say the most important sense — the
insurrectionists were eminently successful. Their sacrifices created the sentiment
of moral superiority against which the forces of the partitioning states would
not be brought to bear. If they suffered in the flesh, they raised 'the Word' to a
position of supreme respect in the Polish tradition. They inspired the myths and
poetry on which future generations could feed. They generated fierce emotions,
both of admiration and of revulsion, which perpetuated memories of their
deeds, even among those who would have preferred to forget. They showed that
'Poland', whatever it was, was still alive. Paradoxically enough, the men who
chose physical violence as their expression of defiance, even in the face of cer-
tain defeat, ensured that the battle of minds could be sustained on a much more
equal footing. By provoking the authorities into decades of active repression,
they stimulated the other, spiritual contest which could not be waged with
batons and bullets, and where the deployment of soldiers and policemen was
both ridiculous and self-defeating:
Ogromne wojska, bitne generaly,
Policje—tajne, widne, i dwuplciowe.
Przeciwko komuz tak sie pojednaly?
Przeciwko kilku myslom... co nie nowe.*
During the century of statelessness and beyond, every single Polish generation
has produced men careless of their own survival, who have risen with desperate
courage against their tormentors. The Warsaw Rising of August 1944 was but
the last performance of a drama which was also enacted in 1733, 1768, 1794,
1830, 1846, 1848, 1863, 1905, and 1920. On each occasion, if asked what they
were fighting for, their reply might well have been the same: for 'a few ideas... which is nothing new'.
* Enormous armies, brave generals,
Police forces—secret, or open, and of both sexes,
Against whom are they ranged?
Against a few ideas... which is nothing new.^26