Historisches Museum, ViennaFranz Geffels, The Battle of Vienna, 1683

Toleration and the Future of Europe

Timothy Snyder

In Anders Breivik’s manifesto, the ostensibly Christian defeat of the Ottoman armies at Vienna in 1683 is the central historical event. He imagines a European rebirth in 2083, four hundred years later, and names the Polish king Jan Sobieski, whose troops were crucial to raising the Ottoman siege, as one of his heroes: “John III Sobieski and the Holy League successfully defended Europe against an army of more than 150,000 Muslims.” Breivik thinks Europe today is again under siege from Muslims, and that Europeans must resort to “atrocious, but necessary” violence to defend it. It is unsurprising that what Breivik has to say about European history is trivial. The plagiarism of his manifesto recalls Hannah Arendt’s point that those who do great evil may themselves be incapable of cultural creation. The superficiality of his worldview recalls her notion that the greatest of evils has no roots, and therefore has no bounds. But since the reference to Vienna has largely passed without criticism, it is worth recalling for a moment what actually happened in 1683.

The lifting of the siege of Vienna was no simple victory for Christendom over Islam. It is quite true that Poland, at considerable risk to itself, marched its armies southward to rescue its Habsburg neighbors from the Ottomans. But old Poland was in no simple sense a Christian state. It had ignored papal objections to its treaties with Muslim and pagan states, and been the target of crusades from Germany. The Polish king was obliged by law to tolerate various forms of Christianity, including Protestantism and the eastern rite, as well as Judaism and Islam. The wealth of the land was largely due to the labor of Jewish managers; at the time more Jews lived in Poland than in any other country. Indeed, some Jews converted to Christianity and became Ukrainian Cossacks and Lithuanian noblemen—two groups that constituted parts of the Polish army that liberated Vienna.

The Polish charge down the Kahlenberg to the besieged walls of Vienna on September 12, 1683 was indeed dramatic. A Turkish chronicler recalled “a flood of black pitch consuming everything it touched.” Who were these Polish cavalrymen, and why were they so fearsome? The Polish state had been in contact with Islam for all seven centuries of its existence. Wars with the Ottomans and their Tatar vassals in Ukraine were commonplace. It was in the setting of Polish and Ottoman battles for Ukraine that Hasidism took shape and gained popularity among Polish Jews. At various points Tatars also switched sides from the Ottomans to the Poles, sometimes having been taken prisoner first, sometimes not. In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Tatars printed their holy books (kitab) in a Polish-Belarusian language, using Arabic script. Tatars fought in Polish armies in the defining battles of the age, for example helping to defeat the crusading Teutonic Knights at Grünwald in 1410. They came to form an elite part of the officer class. Muslims were thus among the Polish horsemen who drove the Ottomans from the gates of Vienna.

The Muslim influence upon the rescuers of Christendom went far deeper than this. The very tactics of the Polish cavalry, regarded at the time as the best in Europe, were developed in contact with, and indeed copied from, the Tatars. Polish nobles bore curved swords. The shaved their skulls and grew their mustaches long. Just before the fateful charge down the Kahlenberg, each Polish soldier took a piece of straw, and placed it in his helm. This was an agreed-upon signal, allowing the Austrians to tell the difference between the allied Polish soldiers and the common Ottoman enemy.

Like the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Ottoman Empire was anything but a monoreligious state. Both states were based upon a political logic that is no longer possible to follow. Monarchs made durable arrangements with leaders of the various religions practiced in their realms: the Ottoman sultan left Christian matters largely in the hands of the Orthodox Church, whose patriarchs were more powerful under the Ottomans than they had been under Byzantium. Greeks were the traders and the financiers of the Ottoman Empire, and the Ottoman armies, like the Polish ones, were multiconfessional. Although we might think of the Ottoman Empire as Asian in origin, in fact its history begins with Balkan conquests, and most of its Balkan subjects never converted to Islam. These kinds of early modern arrangements, where a weak central state in effect confers authority to local elites in exchange for the ability to tax and wage war, are often regarded as models of toleration.

It is quite wrong, it should go without saying, to imagine some sort of premodern Christian purity in Europe. Yet we must also be wary of seeing these early modern states as a positive model to which we could return. The creation of the modern state in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as Max Weber and Ernst Gellner quite rightly saw, involved the attempt by leaders of states to circumvent or abolish religious and other intermediaries, so that the relation between the state and the individual could be direct, and so that taxes and soldiers could be raised without compromises with local authorities. States that could not solve this problem, such as Poland and the Ottoman Empire, did not survive.

Even if we wished to revive this tradition, no modern Western state could accept early modern levels of dependence on local elites, and few if any religious communities in the West are cohesive and obedient enough to endure rule by their elders. The tradition of cooperation with local religious communities continues, of course, but in Europe it is subordinate to the relationship between citizen and state. The problem for modern states is to reconcile state power and social diversity. One twentieth-century solution, exemplified by Nazi Germany, was to attempt to build state power by eliminating the diversity. This involved racist mass murder, and it also brought failure; failure that Breivik’s mass murder recalls both in its barbarity and in its self-destructiveness.

Most European states are little concerned today with raising armies, but they are concerned with levying taxes to fund pensions. The functioning of the European welfare state depends upon the labor and indeed the civic good will of immigrants—which in Europe often means Muslim immigrants. These religious minorities cannot be ruled in the early modern way, and they will not, whatever Breivik and those like him imagine, be eliminated in the twentieth-century way. To preserve functioning states adaptable to unpredictable cultural novelty is one of the great challenges of our century. Norway, like much of Europe today, has witnessed the rise of a populist right, one that threatens to supplant the conservative traditions of Christian democracy. Although these various European parties are quite different one from the other, they are alike in denying the basic reality that Europe’s tomorrow depends upon how immigrants and their children experience Europe today. The laudably calm, lucid, and liberal reaction of the Norwegian government and the Norwegian people to Breivik’s horrible act suggests that this is perhaps more than a dream. They represent a Europe where, just possibly, a very functional state might make European identities appealing to those not born to them.

via Toleration and the Future of Europe by Timothy Snyder | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books.

Chopin's Statue in Warsaw's Baths Park

2010 is the Year of Chopin, and I promised myself to write about him before it ends. Chopin is known for making the Polish traditional and folk music his trademark, for which he’s considered the most Polish out of Polish composers.

Parents

His father, Nicolas Chopin, was born in the Duchy of Lorraine to a family that advanced from peasant ancestry to petty burghers. Nicolas’s father was a wheelwright, working on the property of Michał Jan Pac, a Polish nobleman. Lorraine used to be the domain of Poland’s ex king Stanisław Leszczyński, where he was followed by many other Poles. In 1781, sixteen year old Nicolas travelled to Poland with Adam Weydlich, a manager of Pac’s property, and remained in his adopted homeland until his death. In Poland, he used the name Mikołaj. At first he worked in a tobacco factory, but after the Second Partition of Poland it was closed. In 1794, Mikołaj joined the Warsaw militia to help the Kościuszko Insurrection. He was wounded after a year of fighting, an event that coincided with the end of the Insurrection and the Third Partition of Poland.

With time he completely polonized, and became a tutor and school teacher. His first pupils were the children of the Łączyński family. Incidentally, one of them, better known as Maria Walewska, later became Napoleon’s mistress. Mikołaj spent several years tutoring the children of Countess Skarbek, where he met his future wife.

Tekla Justyna Krzyżanowska came from an old but impoverished noble family. As the Polish nobility was an extremely large group, many families were poor, and both men and women had to work. Thus, although of unequal birth, both Mikołaj and Justyna worked for the same patroness. Most likely she was the family’s steward.

Żelazowa Wola, Chopin's birthplace

Youth

Fryderyk Chopin was born 200 years ago in Żelazowa Wola, in a house given to the Chopins on the Skarbeks’ property. Palladianism reached Poland yet in the 16th century, and the house is very typical for the 17th century countryside architecture. Such houses were inhabited by poorer nobles all over the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Both Chopin’s parents played instruments, and a legend has it that his father played the fiddle when Chopin was born. His mother, as well as his elder sister, were pianists.

At that time it was yet customary to translate one’s name. Chopin was baptised as Fridericus Franciscus Choppen in Latin. Countess Skarbek became his godmother at the home christening, but was replaced by her son during the official church ceremony. The Countess was Protestant, while her son was Catholic.

The Chopins were a loving family, and Chopin was close with his three sisters: Ludwika, Izabela and Emilia. Although Fryderyk was the family genius, all the children were talented . It was Ludwika (Chopin’s closest confidante) who first taught Chopin to play the piano and convinced her parents to hire a professional tutor for the little boy. Later, the sisters also published a popular book for children.

As much as Chopin’s birthplace links him to the countryside, in fact Chopin lived there only for several months as a little baby. His parents soon moved to Warsaw, where he spent the greater part of his life, visiting countryside only during summers, when he was invited to the country houses of his richer friends.

Kazimierzowski Palace, today part of the Warsaw University campus

In Warsaw his father worked as a secondary school teacher, and the Chopins ran a prominent boarding house for noble high school students. They changed their apartments as the school moved from place to place. Since 1810 they lived in the Saxon Palace (not rebuilt after WWII). Between 1817 and 1827 they had an apartment in the Kazimierzowski Palace where they held a popular salon on Thursdays. Several years before Chopin’s departure they moved to the Czapski Palace, today part of the Academy of Arts.

Chopin was very witty, had a great sense of humour, and excelled in satirical texts written for his parents,  caricatures of his teachers drawn during lessons, and an uncommon talent for mimicry. It’s thought that his other talents were as prominent as his music skills. However, since his earliest years he had been considered  child prodigy, and it’s his music genius that teachers sought to develop.

Although shy among strangers, Chopin’s reserve disappeared when among friends. He was generally liked by other students and many of the boys left in his parents’ charge remained his lifetime friends. He was equally liked by girls, with whom he willingly played as a boy.

Chopin had his public debut at 7, in the Radziwiłł Palace. Today it's known as the Presidential Palace, and serves as the home of the President of Poland.

Chopin was kochliwy as we say in Polish, meaning that he was in love often. His feelings were usually passionate and short lived, but there were several women more important than others, among them two to whom he proposed marriage: Konstancja Gładkowska and Maria Wodzińska, the former was a fellow student in the Conservatory.

Chopin was lucky to have good teachers. Both Wojciech Żywny, a tutor hired by his parents, and Józef Elsner, Chopin’s teacher at the Conservatory, rather observed than attempted to influence or constrain Chopin’s talent. At the Conservatory, Chopin had individual courses of playing the piano and composition.

His first works were published when he was still studying. He also became a school organist, accompanying the Sunday mass. The Chuch of St . Joseph of the Visitationists is one of very few buildings in Warsaw that survived the war considerably little damaged. The organs Chopin used to play are still there. You can see other Chopin places in Warsaw here.

During his summers spent in the countryside Chopin attended village parties, watched peasants dance and play. He also played with Jewish musicians, of whom he wrote to his parents that they were so impressed by him playing their music they wanted to hire him for weddings.

Fryderyk Chopin by Ambroży Mieroszewski, 1829. Mieroszewski was commissioned to paint the portraits of all the members of the Chopin family. None of them survived WWII. This is a copy from the prewar archives.

Chopin insisted that the irregularities present in folk music could be properly expressed in stylistic compositions. He introduced rubato to many of his works. He wasn’t the first to use Polish dances: mazurkas and polonaises, but he was first to establish ballade as a genre. His ballades were inspired by Adam Mickiewicz’s poems published as Ballades and Romances. He also wrote songs to poems written by several Polish romantics.

In Chopin’s music one can hear direct quotes from other Polish works, which is what makes Poles so sentimental about it. We’re transported to the sounds of our youth and family home. One of such borrowings is a popular carol.

Carols

It’s said that Poland has the largest collection of carols and pastorals. The canon comprises of 600 pieces. First carols reached the country from Italy in the 14th century, and they were slow songs. The Protestant Reformation added to the number, when Protestants from all over Europe sought refuge in Poland and translated their native language carols to Polish. The number still grew throughout the Catholic Counter-Reformation, when the Jesuits sought ways to attract believers via music and theatricals. Many carols have been written to the melody of Polish dances. There are polonaises, mazurkas, krakowiaks and others.

The Enlightenment didn’t produce many new carols, but established the canon by rejecting those that were too Rococo or otherwise not all time classics. New carols were written throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, during both World Wars, in concentration camps and communist prisons. Some are political in their message.

This 17th century carol remains one of the most popular. Lulajże Jezuniu (Sleep Little Jesus) is a lullaby. It’s loved for its haunting melody. The words are simple, ones that every mother might sing to her child.

Lullaby, Jesus, O cease from crying
Here on Thy Mother’s warm breast softly lying

Lullaby, Jesus, O sleep now my treasure,
Mother is watching with love none can measure

Translation by George K. Evans from The International Book of Christmas Carols

Grażyna Brodzińska’s fairly traditional rendition in the Cracow Philharmonic:

I also found a rendition by the three great Italian tenors: Carreras, Domingo and Pavarotti. Dormi o Bambino in Polish and Italian, which you can watch directly on YouTube.

This carol appears in the middle of Chopin’s Scherzo Nr 1  Op. 20  in b-minor.

Merry Christmas!

Rousseau: Love Your Country

On the eve of the 18th century Augustus II (the Strong) occupied the throne of the Commonwealth. He wasn’t legally elected by the nobility, and his various machinations dragged Poland-Lithuania into wars with Sweden and Russia. With Sweden’s intervention Augustus II lost his throne to Stanisław Leszczyński. With the support of Russia the situation changed again, and Augustus II regained his lost position. In 1717, at the Silent Seym (a session of parliament where none of its members was allowed to voice opposition) Augustus’s II ambitions to impose absolutist monarchy were curtailed, but, at the same time, Poland-Lithuania became Russia’s protectorate.

In 1732, expecting that Augustus II would die soon, Russia, Austria and Prussia, whose monarchs liked to style themselves the Holy Trinity, signed the Treaty of Three Black Eagles. Its main goal was to prevent the election of Stanisław Leszczyński or any other candidate backed up by France or Sweden, and, above all, not to allow for any reforms in Poland.

Stanisław Leszczyński was duly elected by the nobles, which led to the War of the Polish Succession, after which Russia placed Augustus III on the Polish throne.

When that king died, the three despots agreed for the election of Stanisław August Poniatowski, who became Poland’s last king. As Catherine the Great saw it, he was so poor and weak that he’d have no choice but to depend on the neighbouring powers in everything.

In response to Russia’s continuous meddling in Poland-Lithuania’s internal affairs a large number of nobles formed an armed confederation. The Confederation of Bar (1768-1772) is known as Poland’s first national uprising. With the help of Turkey and France it lasted for four years, and was eventually quenched by the joint effort of the Holy Trinity’s armies.

Since Catherine the Great liked to present herself as an Enlightened Monarch, the leaders of the Confederation of Bar, among whom was Kazimierz Pułaski (later known as the father of American Cavalry), were labelled as ignorant, intollerant conservatives, opposed to any reforms in the country. Yet it is difficult to agree such notions with the fact that one of them, Michał Wielhorski, was sent to Paris as the confederates’ envoy, in order to ask two Enlightenment thinkers: Gabriel Mably and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, to draft proposals for political reforms that would be applied when peace was restored.

The effect were two works: Du Gouvernement et des lois de Pologne by Mably and Considerations sur le gouvernament de Pologne by Rousseau.

Rousseau’s work, although well known to many 18th century Poles, was not published at that time. The English translation was issued as late as 1957. Complementary to the Social Contract it remains an important document for those who want to study Rousseau’s political theory. The former was a theory, the latter was an attempt to apply theory in practice. Rousseau’s advice was taken under consideration when the May 3 Constitution (the first modern codified European constitution) was composed.

The English version is now available at this blog. Go to: Considerations on the Government of Poland

My favourite quote:

You may not prevent them from swallowing you up; see to it at least that they will not be able to digest you.

Discover Poland TV is a collection of videos about Poland for English speaking audience. Some of the videos there will be a good addition to this blog. They cover history and Poles, as well as tourist places and cultural events.

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (magenta) on a map of Europe, 1648.

The official name of the country was Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It was referred to in Latin as Regnum Poloniae Magnusque Ducatus Lithuaniae.

Since the 17th century, in international relations, it was usually known as the Most Serene Republic of Poland, Serenissima Res Publica Poloniae.

Locally it was called Rzeczpospolita – a calque translation of the Latin expression res publica (literally: public affair).

Foreigners often applied the name Poland to the entire country. Today, English-speaking historians favour the name Commonwealth which is another translation of the Latin res publica.

The Commonwealth consisted in two main parts: Korona (the Crown), used in reference to the territory of the Kingdom of Poland, and Lithuania, applied to the territory of the Grand Duchy.

Outline of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth with its major subdivisions after the 1618 Peace of Deulino, superimposed on present-day national borders.

Its borders changed over the centuries. At its greatest it stretched over the territory of a number of present-day countries: Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, southern Estonia and parts of Russia, Moldova, Romania and Slovakia.

Poland and Lithuania entered into personal union at the end of the 14th century. In 1569 their ties were strengthened by the Union of Lublin that gave start to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 1795 the country was erased from the map of Europe by its neighbours: Russia, Prussia and Austria. Poland and Lithuania would not be re-established as independent countries until 1918.

The Commonwealth was at a time the largest country in Europe (the territories of both the Ottoman Empire and Russia having stretched over other continents). However, historians rarely call it “empire”, because the country didn’t fight wars if it could be avoided. It had no imperialistic ambitions and didn’t want to influence the politics of other countries.

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was the longest lasting union in Europe, binding the fate of its peoples for some 400-500 years.

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