Mieszkańcy Litwy i Białej Rusi w pismach rozproszonych Zygmunta Glogera

Abstract

This article discusses the problem of national consciousness and ethnicity of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania inhabitants’ in the dispersed letters of Zygmunt Gloger. Gloger was attached to the concept of gente Ruthenus, natione Polonus. That was the reason of the origin of Gloger’s reluctance towards the so-called Krajowcy (Nations). He criticized them not so much in connection with historical arguments, but in connection with the fact that the Krajowcy party allowed the restitution of a separate Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Gloger lived in the era between the Napoleonic era and the First World War, when the idea of the nation changed – not only in terms of its content, but also in terms of political significance. At the end of the 18th century, the idea was kept by not many followers: as a political leitmotif it served the political leaders, and as a cultural bond it connected the educated people of all states. This cultural bond connecting people, not dividing, was particularly close to Gloger. However, at the beginning of the 20th century, the idea of the nation seized the masses and became the most powerful political idea for validating Europe, and later also the world.