THE GROWTH OF THE MODERN NATION 57purist Pole was left dreaming about some special, poetical, but undefined
Freedom of the future:
Wolnosc w Polsce bedzie inna;
Nie szlachecko-ztota,
Ni slomiana wolnosc gminna
Od plota do plota:
Ni slowiensko przepascista
O tatarskim czynie,
Ni ta z ktorej kabalista
Sni o gilotynie.*Cyprian Norwid (182.1-83), who was so much in advance of his time in so many
ways, had already formed these ideas in 1848. They were to prove increasingly
convincing as political and social conflicts multiplied in succeeding years. The
implications were bleak. If Poland could not find a form of government worthy
of her traditions, it was better that she stayed as she was:Jesli ma Polska pojsc nie droga, mleczna
W calo-ludzkosci gromnym huraganie,
Jezeli ma bye nie demokratyczna
To niech pod carem na wieki zostanie.
Jesli mi Polska ma bye anarchiczna
Lub socjalizmu rozwinac pytanie
To ja juz wole te panslawistyczna
Co pod Moskalem na wieki zostanie!*'''
By the same token, the greatest dangers were not the obvious ones of oppression
and exploitation, but the insidious advance of corruption and indifference:
Z wszelkich kajdan, czy te sa.
Powrozowe, zlote czy stalne
Przesiaklymi najbardziej krwiai Iza-
Niewidzialne!*
Meanwhile, national salvation was to be found in work. As Norwid wrote in
Promethidion (1852), 'It's a beautiful thing to be enchanted by work - work* Freedom in Poland will be different -/Not the noble-style Golden Freedom,/ Nor the
thatched freedom of the peasant commune/From fence to fence:/Nor the fathomless free-
dom of Slav-style (anarchy)/Brought about by some (barbarous) Tartar outrage/Nor yet
the kind of Freedom where cabbalists/Dream of the guillotine.^58
** If Poland is not to tread the Milky Way/In the thunderous hurricane of all-humanity ;/If she
is going to be undemocratic/Then let her stay under the Tsar for centuries,/If Poland is to
be anarchic/Or is to elaborate the question of Socialism/Then I prefer that Pan-slav (sys-
tem)/which would stay for centuries under the Muscovite.^59
* Of all the sorts of shackles, which/Cast iron, gold or steel,/Which are soaked the most in
blood and tears?/The invisible ones!^60