The Downfall of France and the Future of Europe


Walerian KALINKA (1826-86)

 

 

B. Nov. 20, 1826, Bolechowice (near Cracow). Having settled in France, Kalinka began working with the Hôtel Lambert circle. With Julian Klaczko he edited Wiadomości Polskie (1857-61), regarded as one of the best Polish magazines in the nineteenth century. In 1870 Kalinka became a Catholic priest. He spent his last years in Poland. Kalinka combined his pastoral duties with scholarly work. He owed his renown above all to his fundamental historical works concerned with the decline of Poland in the eighteenth century and attempts to revitalize it during the Four-Year Sejm (Sejm czteroletni [“The Four-Year Sejm”], vol. 1-3, 1880-88; Ostatnie lata panowania Stanisława Augusta [“The Last Years of King Stanislas’ Reign”, vol. 1-2, 1868). They created the foundations for an important current in Polish historiography, known as the “Cracow historical school”, pointing to domestic reasons for the decline in Polish power, which in their opinion led to the partitions and the disappearance of Poland from the map of Europe. Other noteworthy works of Kalinka are the polemic with the absolutism of Franz Josef: Galicia i Kraków pod panowaniem austriackim (“Galicia and Cracow Under the Austrian Rule”, 1853) and his best essayistic achievement, Upadek Francji i przyszłość Europy (“The Downfall of France and the Future of Europe”), where he predicted that the implementation of liberal and socialist doctrines in the political and social life of the continent will lead to dire consequences. D. Dec. 16, 1886, Lvov.

 

                The socialist ideal is a worker state, something along the lines of ancient Sparta, with modifications suited to modern views and requirements. There is no doubt that the relation between workers and the capital which exploits them is unfair, that the working class in Western and Central Europe, atomized, with unsatisfied moral needs and often inadequately satisfied material needs, is the most neglected and oppressed class of our times. Hence it poses the greatest threat to the contemporary order; and the right to free association which the liberal outlook typically proposed as a cure, has only exacerbated the threat. No one knows what force, what mysterious hand is behind the associations which sometimes emerge and unexpectedly bring one or another industry to a halt. It is, therefore, a bad and dangerous thing which, if our governments had time to think about the future, would have long ago become a matter of concern for them. However, who would agree to resolving this social and political misery through the enacting the principles of socialism, so that a modern Sparta, without religion, would represent the progress of civilization? Would it not rather be a return to ultimate barbarity?

                There are two foundations of human society from which it would be suicidal to separate ourselves: liberty and property. Socialism removes them both. True, today’s evil arises from the abuse both of freedom and property; but a person who in order to uproot the abuse would also uproot the use, would be like a doctor who as a cure for headache would administer beheading. It is virtually impossible to enact socialism because socialism is in conflict with human nature. To be sure, there are groups of people who willingly renounce freedom of thought and property, but it is so great, so exceptional, and so unnatural a sacrifice, that without transcendent help no one can make and sustain it. Non omnes capiunt hoc verbum sed quibus datum est. However, socialism wages the fiercest war not only against precisely those things which bring this transcendent help, but also against things which in any way remind us that there is a transcendent world. Unlike liberalism, socialism does not tolerate the individual need for religion, but denies the existence of this need; today it fights it mostly in a covert way, but tomorrow it will confront religion openly and axe in hand. So how is it possible to persuade people so deeply absorbed by the coarsest matter to renounce their innermost self? One can, by inducing fear in their hearts, make them cower slavishly for some time, but as soon as such a Spartan state established itself, the noblest elements in it would start fleeing, salvaging what they could from their property. And even if the whole of Europe became such a workers’ republic, people would escape even to the Sahara, to the furthest reaches of Siberia – any place where a father would be allowed to raise his children according to the precepts of his conscience and where he would be able to pass onto them in his final hour, together with a blessing, at least a piece of furniture or clothing. For to be a father and to be prevented from raising one’s children according to one’s own outlook, to inherit property and to be prevented from keeping it, to earn money and to be prevented from freely disposing of one’s earnings, this is all contrary to human instinct. If one achieves submission by force, it will only be a pretended submission; and soon everyone will shift heavier burdens on other people, keeping the lighter ones; they will take as much as possible from the fruit of other people’s labor, always the first to eat and the last to toil. It would be the most abject, the most corrupting despotism, representing not progress, but a return to bestiality.

                Yet socialism may triumph some day. As we have seen, its triumph stems directly and inevitably from liberal principles. This will be a terrible moment: the subversion of everything that exists, the oppression of the wealthier classes, and bitter disappointment for the victors – but it will be just a moment. Earthquakes may swallow whole areas but later the ground calms down and vegetation again covers the debris. No utopia has ever reached such heights of absurdity as socialism will, if it triumphs.

                No, this is not where the future of Europe lies.



Walerian Kalinka - Walerian Kalinka urodził się 20 listopada 1826 roku w Bolechowicach pod Krakowem. Uczęszczał do krakowskiego Liceum Św. Anny. Po jego ukończeniu w 1840 r. podjął studia na Wydziale Filozoficznym UJ, następnie zaś na Wydziale Prawa, który ukończył w 1845 r. Wziął aktywny udział w tzw. rabacji galicyjskiej 1846 r., blisko współpracując z dyktatorem powstania Tyssowskim. Przebieg ówczesnych wydarzeń przekonał go o destrukcyjnym wpływie radykalizmu rewolucyjnego na stosunki społeczne, czemu dał wyraz, zasiadając w redakcji krakowskiego dziennika konserwatywnego „Czas”. Krytycznie odniósł się jednak do Pawła Popiela, gdy ten powitał goszczącego w Krakowie cesarza Franciszka Józefa I nazbyt wiernopoddańczym, jego zdaniem (a także innego członka redakcji, Maurycego Manna), artykułem wstępnym w piśmie. Po osiedleniu się we Francji Kalinka został współpracownikiem Hotelu Lambert, zgrupowanego wokół A. J. Czartoryskiego; wraz z Julianem Klaczką redagował w Paryżu „Wiadomości Polskie”, które uchodziły za jedno z najlepszych polskich pism XIX w. Mimo to zainteresowanie pismem było na przełomie lat pięćdziesiątych i sześćdziesiątych nikłe i wobec stałego topnienia prenumeratorów zostało ono zamknięte. W 1870 r. Kalinka przyjął święcenia kapłańskie. Ostatnie lata życia spędził w Polsce. Zmarł we Lwowie 16 grudnia 1886 r. Kalinka obowiązki duszpasterskie łączył z pracą naukową. Zasłynął przede wszystkim jako autor fundamentalnych prac historycznych o upadku Polski w wieku XVIII i próbach jej odrodzenia w dobie Sejmu Czteroletniego ("Sejm czteroletni", 3 t., 1880-1888; "Ostatnie lata panowania Stanisława Augusta", 2 t., 1868).Tworzyły one zręby ważnego nurtu historiografii polskiej, nazwanego krakowską szkołą historyczną, którego zwolennicy polemizowali z poglądami Lelewela i jego uczniów, podówczas niezwykle popularnymi, a upatrującymi przyczyn upadku Rzeczpospolitej w niekorzystnym splocie wydarzeń międzynarodowych. Kalinka, J. Szujski i M. Bobrzyński zanegowali ten pogląd, wskazując na wewnętrzne przyczyny słabnięcia Polski, prowadzące do rozbiorów i jej zniknięcia z mapy politycznej Europy. Spośród innych godnych uwagi dzieł Kalinki warto wymienić historyczną polemikę z absolutyzmem józefińskim ("Galicja i Kraków pod panowaniem austriackim", 1853) oraz szczytowe osiągnięcie publicystyczne "Przegrana Francji i przyszłość Europy", zapowiadające złowrogie skutki zastosowania liberalnych i socjalistycznych teorii w życiu politycznym i społecznym Starego Kontynentu. W 2001 r. OMP wydał wybór pism Kalinki "Galicja i Kraków pod panowaniem austriackim".

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