Included Observation

The Case of Marian Zdzekhovski and Andrzej Walicki (Notes on the Margins)

Abstract

The article attempts to examine individual works from the rich creative heritage of prominent Polish thinkers Marian Zdzekhowski (1861–1938) and Andrzej Walicki (1861–1938), drawing some parallels between them. Both thinkers belonged to the twentieth century, which, as shown in the article, can simplify rather than complicate the task of comparative historical research, given that the Slavophile ideology served as the link between both authors. Each of these Polish thinkers perceived Slavophilism as an attractive ideological trend, seeing in it the potential for a detailed comparison with Polish Messianism. A special emphasis in the article is placed on the context in which the Slavophiles themselves and Polish researchers of Slavophilism used one of the most popular concepts in a given context — “the people”. Special attention is paid to the difficulties of translating this term. While Russian has two concepts — “people” and “nation”, Polish has only one word — “naród”, which has two close meanings: “people” and “nation”. This deprives the translated text of the linguistic nuances inherent in the original. Along the way, the article provides comments on modern Western and Russian historiography of the history of concepts.