Konfabulacja i plotka jako czynniki kształtujące obraz powstania krakowskiego i rabacji galicyjskiej w 1846 r. w prasie krajów Europy Zachodniej (Wielka Brytania, Francja, Niemcy)
Authors: Żurawski vel Grajewski Radosław 
Published: December 2022

Confa bulation and gossip as factors shaping the picture of the Cracow Uprising
and the Galician Slaughter of 1846 in the press of Western European countries
(United Kingdom, France, Germany)

The article is a case study of the image of the Cracow Uprising and the Galician Slaughter of 1846 in the Western European press. The author seeks to answer a number of questions relating to the factors that influenced the emergence, spread and validation of rumours and confabulations creating in a significant measure a fantastic picture of the events in Poland. He indicates that one of the fundamental framework conditions accompanying rumours was the existence of a certain space of information uncertainty, an area that could be used by imagination, wishful thinking, the political need of entities interested in creating a specific image of events that is desired or favourable to them. With the speed of communication and information flow corresponding to the level of technical development in Europe in the mid-nineteenth century, this space of information uncertainty was much wider than today and resulted not only from the inability to quickly and directly reach information sources, verify their veracity and efficiently forward the appropriate message to newspaper editors, but largely from the slowness of the flow of news in the era, when both the telegraph and the railway — although already known — were still too fresh inventions to significantly affect the process of information circulation in Europe. Other factors were
also at play in this space of information uncertainty, trying to shape it according to their own political needs. The governments and the press of the partitioning powers had an obvious advantage here. The information they provided was most often the first and for some time the only version of the events, which was verified as reports came from other sources. At the same time it is impossible to rule out the influence of sheer ignorance and accidental mistakes unwittingly committed by casual witnesses in their accounts. Moreover, Polish political groups of the Great Emigration, too, were interested in emphasising their own influence on the political life of the country, which could provoke conclusions incompatible with the real role they played in the events. There may have been a few sources of very optimistic and fantastic news about the extent of the uprising and insurgents’ victories. The Polish émigré press eagerly repeated such news, wanting to believe that the whole country was really in a state of insurrection. Longed for throughout the years of exile, the moment of liberation of the homeland seemed to be near. For people who have long been waiting for such news, it was easy to believe in it and repeat it with great joy. The scale of the Russian army’s movements provoked by the uprising seemed to prove the truth of the information concerning the wide spread of the uprising. However, it turned out to be only a demonstration of the military strength of Russia addressed to other European powers.