ARTICLES Who Is a Pole and Where Is Poland? Territory and Nation in the Rhetoric of Polish National Democracy before 1905 Brian A. Porter At the turn of the twentieth century most Polish political activists dreamed of recreating the Polish state, although they disagreed about where the new Poland should be located and whom it should include. In the years before 1905 the National Democratic movement-the "En- decja," as it was commonly called-envisioned an expansive Poland stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and from the Dnieper to the Oder. How could a movement which came to be known for its pragmatism and tactical flexibility espouse such an unrealistic, if not absurd, ambition? How could nationalists who insisted upon cultural unity desire a nation which would include millions who neither spoke the Polish language nor considered themselves to be Poles? This article will argue that these questions can be illuminated by examining the Endecja's definition of that enigmatic Polish term, narod (nation). An analysis of the National Democrats' use of the word "nation" before 1905 reveals that they were not as "realistic" or "pragmatic" as their own propaganda-and somne historians-would have us believe. In fact, we find that the discursive tradition of Polish positivism from which the Endecja emerged was tempered by the use of neo-romantic imagery. To put it differently, the National Democrats described a non- empirical, transcendent nation in the language of late nineteenth cen- tury scientism, thus allowing them to distinguish between the goals of the nation and those of the state, and to maintain an image of prag- matic realism while at the same time advancing an ambitious set of long-term goals. The National Democratic movement was founded in Warsaw in 1893 by Zygmunt Balicki, an emissary from an emigre nationalist group called the "Polish League," and Roman Dmowski, the leader of Warsaw University's student movement. Frustrated with the League's inactivity, Balicki and Dmowski led a "coup" against the emigre leadership and reorganized the movement into the hierarchical, conspiratorial "Na- Research for this article was assisted by a grant from the American Council of Learned Societies. I would like to thank Professors David McDonald, Alfred Senn and Janine Holc, as well as my colleagues Jonathan Grant and Brian Chipman, for their construc- tive criticisms of a previous draft of this essay. Slavic Review 5 1, no. 4 (Winter 1992) This content downloaded from 141.211.4.224 on Fri, 9 Jan 2015 18:59:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions