Title: Rewolucja
First published: 1995
Description: The revolution of 1905 in the Russian-ruled Kingdom of Poland marked the consolidation of major new influences on the political scene. As he examines the emergence of a mass political culture in Poland, Robert E. Blobaum offers the first history in any Western language of this watershed period.

Drawing on extensive archival research to explore the history of Poland's revolutionary upheavals, Blobaum departs from traditional interpretations of these events as peripheral to an essentially Russian movement that reached a climax in the Russian Revolution of 1917. He demonstrates that, although Polish independence was not formally recognized until after World War I, the social and political conditions necessary for nationhood were established in the years around 1905.

The emancipation of the peasantry and mass migration to urban centers transformed Polish society, and by 1905 the Polish industrial economy was in a state of crisis exacerbated by Russian trade policies. Although most Poles may have been reconciled to Russian control, all groups from conservative clericalists to revolutionary socialists united against Russia's attempts to eradicate the Polish language, religion, history, and culture.

Blobaum describes how a bitter boycott of the russified school system focused attention on education as an aspect of nation-building. He also shows that the ambivalent response of the Catholic church to popular unrest resulted in an unprecedented alienation and secularization of Polish political culture. A complex array of nationalist and socialist allegiances developed among peasants and industrial workers, and the general strikes of 1905 signaled the emergence of a nationwide labor movement.

Blobaum argues that, despite subsequent Russian repression, the revolution contributed to establishing the conditions for a modern civil society in Poland.
Subjects: History, Poland, history
Places: Poland
Time periods: Revolution, 1905-1907
LC classification: DK4385 .B57 1995