THE GROWTH OF THE MODERN NATION 35of Polish language schools and established the Szkola Glowna, or 'Main School'
in Warsaw. None of these men was successful in any absolute sense. Their
moments of effective control were almost as brief as those of the insurrection-
ists. Especially in Russia, they were handicapped by the absence of any match-
ing generosity of spirit on the part of the authorities. In the last analysis, they
could never pursue a lasting policy of Conciliation with imperial superiors who
did not understand what compromise meant, and who only made concessions
as tactical gestures dictated by temporary weakness. Their work was invariably
cut short by political failure. Yet it was they, and men like them, who gave the
Polish Nation the wherewithal to survive once independence was finally
obtained. If the Insurrectionists were the high priests of the nation's Soul, the
Conciliators were the guardians of its Body.
Wielopolski for instance, was never popular. Square-jawed and grimly deter-
mined, he did his duty as he saw it, and ignored criticism. Having served in his
twenties as the envoy of the Revolutionary Government to London, he was
deeply affected by its failure, and convinced not only of Poland's inability to
escape from bondage single-handed, but also of the futility of hoping for foreign
assistance. In 1846, appalled by the conduct of the Viennese authorities during
the Galician jacquerie, he made a public appeal to the Tsar to accept the willing
submission of the Polish nation:
We are reaching the point where we can submit, since you are the most high-minded of
our opponents. Once we were yours by right of conquest and from fear, like slaves. We
despised the oaths of allegiance which were extracted by force. But today, you accede to
a new title. We submit to you as a free people, voluntarily and by God's favour, and we
accept His sentence. We reject all the self-interested and seductive sentiments, the cheap
phrases and everything which is pompously called 'the right of nations'. We cast off the
tattered rags in which European charity has clothed us but which do not hide our wounds
or clothe our loved ones. We make no conditions.. .3SNicholas I did not even read this appeal. But Wielopolski persevered, and after
another decade in the political wilderness, eventually won the confidence of
Alexander II. His brief tenure of office preceded the January Rising, and, in the
eyes of his critics, provoked it. (See Chapter 16.)
Yet Wielopolski had his admirers, and Wiodzimierz Spasowicz was one who
consistently defended his reputation over the next forty years. Spasowicz's
views are particularly interesting since he was the offspring of a mixed
Russo-Polish marriage who, as Professor of Criminal Law at St. Petersburg and
later as a lawyer and publicist, spent most of his life in Russia and expressed his
ideas in the Russian language. On the political front, he was categorically
opposed to all nationalist adventures and to all forms of Polish separatism. Yet
on the cultural front, he waged a ceaseless campaign for Polish rights and for the
promotion of Polish authors. As a leading contributor to the Vestnik Evropy, he
battled the cultural chauvinists of the day, and as founder of the journal
Ateneum and editor of Kraj (The Land) he commanded a large readership. His