Two Traditions of English Political Thought in the Political Thinking of the “Stańczycy”

Abstract

One of the most interesting groups at the turn of the 20th century was Stańczycy, active in autonomous Galicia from the late 1860s. The name of the faction was inspired by Stańczyk, the sceptical jester of Sigismund the Old, the penultimate king of the powerful Jagiellonian dynasty. This conservative group published Przegląd Polski (The Polish Review), which expressed opinions that were close to the governing elite of the province. Until the end of the 1860s, they drew upon utilitarian or liberal ideas and supported reforms, and later related to the ideas of British conservative thought and the ideas of Burke, while arguing the attempts of the liberal majority to introduce norms that would diminish the rights of every minority, and against irredentism, which neutralised the politics of emotions by replacing it with a sense of duty guided by political reason.