Colonial Ambivalence and Its Aftermath: Colonialism and Anti-Colonialism in Independent Poland and Ireland

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter places the East Central European experience of colonialism within a broader European framework by comparing the cases of Poland and Ireland in the nineteenth century. Historians of Ireland have long argued for the colonial status of Ireland within the United Kingdom by reference to English and Scottish settlement, civilising discourse, economic neglect, and political subjugation. Historians of Poland have been slower to deem it colonial, as not all of these features were present in all three of the partitions. Recently, it has become clear that some Irish and Polish subjects were themselves implicated in colonial practices elsewhere, as ideologues, administrators, soldiers, settlers, teachers, and missionaries. Other Polish and Irish subjects were critical of colonialism, however, and expressed support for colonial subjects elsewhere. After independence, Poland and Ireland diverged, as Ireland made anti-colonialism state policy, whereas Poland toyed with the idea of acquiring colonies. Little valued as a distinct cultural and political entity, Ireland used anti-colonialism as a means of asserting the state’s relevance on the international stage. Conversely, Poland’s more recent experience of statehood and the historical dominance of ethnic Poles in the region encouraged its ambitions to become a Great Power and thus a colonial one.