„Ja, syn tumannej Ukrainy” – o polsko-ukraińskiej tożsamości Józefa Bohdana Zaleskiego

Abstract

This article examines the national identity of Józef Bohdan Zaleski (1802–1886), one of the leading representatives of the Ukrainian school of Polish Romanticism. Although he wrote in Polish and addressed a predominantly Polish readership, Zaleski consistently emphasized his Ukrainian distinctiveness throughout most of his life. Identifying with both Polish and Ukrainian cultural traditions, he viewed the promotion of Polish- Ukrainian reconciliation and brotherhood as one of the central aims of his literary work. While the poet’s tendency to avoid the more contentious aspects of the shared history of the two nations may invite a postcolonial interpretation, such an approach proves insufficient for capturing the complex and hybrid character of a borderland identity situated between an ideological homeland and a personal, lived one. The article situates Zaleski’s views within the broader political and intellectual context of the nineteenth century, marked by the coexistence of Polish independence aspirations and the emerging Ukrainian national revival movement. As the vision of a multiethnic Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth gradually gave way to concepts of an ethnically homogeneous nation-state, Zaleski was increasingly compelled to define his national affiliation more explicitly. Ultimately, despite his enduring attachment to Ukraine, he chose to identify himself primarily as a Pole.