Archipelagi polskości

Abstract

The author of the article presents in a historical outline (from the beginning of the 16th century until the regaining of state independence in the 20th century) the social, political and economic conditions of shaping the category of Polishness. By extracting a certain fixed conceptual resource, she simultaneously indicates that none of these notions has an unambiguous definition, and at the same time each one seems to be fully understandable, has a significant philosophical potential and can serve to build rational arguments or appeal to emotions, and thus constitutes a rhetorically significant component of pedagogical and political discourse. The author’s observations are aimed at stating that, in the face of an ambiguous interpretation of the meaning of the ideal model itself, it very easily falls into a series of moral imperatives, resulting in a variance, the non-identity of interpretation resulting from individualism. Thus, the archipelago as a unifying metaphor, bringing closer the dispersed phenomena that develop at different speeds, and yet are perceived as similar or even identical, seems to be a good tool for describing the complex matter of Polishness.