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The celebrations of the 1870s and 1880s belonged to the initial phase of commemorating the Polish past. Many were events of a somewhat elitist nature, dominated by local and provincial notables, and their demonstrations of Polishness were in keeping with the Austrian regime’s allowances for the preservation of nationality and local traditions within the multinational empire. The commemorations of 1890 and beyond were qualitatively different from those that followed—in part attributable to the changing circumstances in which Poles found themselves, as well as to their response to new stimuli. A new trend toward national activity—a discussion of which follows— also explains why initiatives begun earlier came to fruition in the last decade of the nineteenth century. Poland’s preeminent Romantic poet, Adam Mickiewicz , was honored in a special way: his remains were brought from Paris to Cracow, where they were interred in the same cathedral crypts that housed Polish royalty and the nation’s greatest military figures. The return of Mickiewicz’s ashes to Polish territory marked the beginning of this more active period of national commemoration. NEW CHALLENGES, NEW INITIATIVES Despite various opportunities for commemorating the past, Polish activists had little reason for optimism in the 1880s. While conservative loyalism dominated in Galicia, the doctrines of positivism and organic work kept the Poles in the Russian partition in a state of political quietude. Former insurrectionists , some of whom were returning from Siberian exile at this time, were pained to see the inroads made by Russification and political passivity. THREE Eloquent Ashes: The Translation of Adam Mickiewicz’s Remains  The Saint Petersburg weekly Kraj (Homeland), founded by W`odzimierz Spasowicz and Erazm Piltz in 1882, adopted a conciliatory stance toward the Russians; members of a nascent Polish middle class in the Kingdom of Poland were migrating elsewhere in the empire in search of employment, often losing any sense of Polishness they might have had in the process. The tsarist regime sought to hoodwink the pious masses into believing that it, not the gentry and clergy, was its ally: witness the monument to Tsar Alexander II erected at the central Polish religious shrine of Czeístochowa in 1889. The new united Germany introduced measures designed to weaken the Polish element within. In 1883, a new campaign against “foreigners”— Poles and Jews who were citizens of the Russian or Austrian Empires—residing in the Reich was begun: within the space of two years, thirty-two thousand had been expelled from Berlin and the eastern provinces of the state.1 This was followed by the creation of a Colonization Commission to purchase estates held by the Polish gentry and distribute them to German peasants. What could Polish patriots do to inject some life into Polish society, grown lethargic under these conditions? In late 1886, an answer was found: a pamphlet suggesting new options to counter the effects of oppression and organic work. Written by the émigré Zygmunt Mi`kowski, On Active Resistance and a National Treasury (Rzecz o obronie czynnej i skarbie narodowym ) became the handbook for a new generation of Polish activists. Mi`kowski advocated that Poles take a more active stance as well as amass financial means—the so-called National Treasury—to finance this new engagement in national life. The brochure led to the creation of a secret patriotic association, the Polish League (Liga Polska), which would coordinate such activity. The league was a clandestine organization run from Switzerland by former insurrectionists. Its goal was to train and assemble national forces in all the Polish lands so that independence might eventually be regained within the borders of 1772 as well as collect the necessary funds to accomplish this goal. The Polish League also had a youth branch, the Union of Polish Youth (Zjednoczenie M`odziezŸy Polskiej, or Zet), founded the same year by Zygmunt Balicki. Over time, Zet became active in all university centers where Poles studied, both at home and abroad, and trickled down to the secondary schools. The new trend represented by the Polish League was likewise reflected in the Warsaw weekly G`os (The voice), founded in 1886.2 The new move from passivity to activism may have found another source of inspiration: a new set of historical novels written in the 1880s and likely inspired by the first honorand, Kraszewski.3 Already at the time of the 1883 commemoration, readers of the Warsaw newspaper S`owo (The word) and Cracow’s Czas were devouring installments of With Fire and 78 |   [3.142...

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