In the Shadows of the Commonwealth: Catholicism, Religious Tolerance, and Nineteenth-Century Polish Independence

Abstract

Polish intellectuals in the first half of the nineteenth century defended Polish independence in the European public sphere through the conscious invention of a tradition of religious tolerance. Because defenses of Polish independence in this period were often designed for a European public, the multi-religious heritage of Poland-Lithuania’s past provided resources to shape Polish politics for a variety of audiences and their differing political and religious values. European and Polish publics saw the Russian empire as religiously intolerant, and therefore Poles crafted histories of Poland that offered an explicit counterpoint to this perception of Russia: a Polish tradition of religious co-existence. As long as these international geopolitical appeals remained a dominant part of their political imaginations, Polish intellectuals conceived of Poland in a multi-confessional manner. Polish intellectuals in the first half of the nineteenth century did not conflate Polish national identity with Roman Catholicism but framed their ideas against the multi-religious legacy of the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth. However, by tying the question of Polish independence so strongly to the religious sphere, the figures in this article laid the groundwork for future developments in Polish nationalism in later (and more confessionally rigid) periods.