In this book, based on a large and for the most part hitherto unknown body of source materials, I have attempted to describe the long and rich life of Count Athanasius RaczyÅski by exploring his complicated personality, his way of thinking, and his wide-ranging and at times significant accomplishments.
In the first part, I aimed to describe RaczyÅskiâs personality, highlighting traits of his character that will help one better understand his work as a politician, art collector, and patron. Attention was paid, therefore, to two men who had the greatest influence on the formation of Atanazy RaczyÅskiâs character and mindset: his grandfather Kazimierz and his brother Edward. Further on, the analysis covered RaczyÅskiâs educational path (home-schooling, studies in Frankfurt, private tuition in Berlin and Dresden) and his first work experience â the rather sluggish start of his diplomatic career in the institutions of the Saxon Kingdom.
Then, I analysed RaczyÅskiâs initiatives in the field of broadly understood politics and the political theory he developed. I attempted to shows the effect that Atanazyâs wealth and high social position, his financial and family policy in particular, had on his life. The example of the portrait gallery, established by RaczyÅski in the family estate in Gaj MaÅy in Wielkopolska, demonstrates his method of managing aristocratic symbolic capital. Subsequently, the book followed RaczyÅskiâs gradual assimilation into Berlin social circles and the complicated and at times dramatic development of his career within diplomatic institutions of the Kingdom of Prussia. This part also presented a comprehensive overview of RaczyÅskiâs political thought as a supporter of strong conservatism and an account of his struggle with Polish identity which continued throughout his adult life.
In part three, I described RaczyÅskiâs artistic projects and focused on his activity as art collector, writer, and art patron. I began with a study of Atanazyâs own paintings and drawings, which allowed for a tentative characterisation of his sensitivity and aesthetic preferences. Lastly, the ideas of Atanazy concerning the essence and purpose of art were reconstructed, followed by an analysis of the actual influence RaczyÅski exerted as an author of texts on art (the monumental Histoire de lâart moderne en Allemagne and Les arts en Portugal), protector of artists (especially Wilhelm Kaulbach, who enjoyed a complex and close relationship with RaczyÅski that went far beyond the simple relation between the patron and the artist), art collector, and creator of a public gallery in Berlin.
RaczyÅski was a man with a rich and complex personality and a perspicacious intellect, a man with diverse talents, great energy, courteous manners, and refined tastes â of this there can be no doubt. These features were noted by almost everyone with whom he came into contact and who recorded their encounters with him in their writings, memoirs, or correspondence. Yet few people knew that he was also a man deeply troubled by various passions, inner tensions, contradictions, and doubts. He grappled with an array of conflicting feelings. These included great pride and self-love, but also extreme self-criticism and low self-esteem; his rampant ambition was at times tempered by a conviction that his accomplishments were meaningless; his desire to subject his actions to the rule of reason was challenged by strong bodily desires; and finally, a complicated but strong sense of Polishness that often led him to harshly criticize the beliefs, positions, and actions of his fellow Poles. Traces of these struggles can be seen in almost every sphere of RaczyÅskiâs activity discussed in this book: in his personal life, especially his family life; in his political life and work; and even in the field of art, namely in his activities as a collector, patron, and author.
The issue of national identity, which grew in importance over the course of the nineteenth century, was of particular significance both for RaczyÅski himself and for his contemporaries â especially his Polish compatriots. It also had a major impact on how he would be assessed in the future. It is therefore worth returning once again to this issue.
The views and ideals RaczyÅski held and openly professed were problematic for his fellow Poles in his own time, and his legacy remains a subject of contentious debate in Poland to this day. It is clear that after a period of youthful patriotic enthusiasm and ideological dilemmas, he adopted a âPrussianâ persona, becoming what Edward Rastawiecki critically termed âan out and out German,â1 that is, he assessed political events and phenomena from a Prussian standpoint and identified the Polish national interest with that of the Prussian state. However, we should ask ourselves what his reasons were for taking such a stance.
Personal ambitions certainly played a role here: the desire for a career in the Prussian state administration, the temptations of being close to the royal court, an interest in holding a highly visible social position, with all its attendant distinctions and prerogatives. Ideological considerations, however, were the decisive factor. First, there were the beliefs instilled in him by Kazimierz RaczyÅski at once his grandfather, guardian, and friend â a man whose guiding principle was unquestionable subordination to the highest lawful authority, whose legitimacy was conferred upon him by God himself. Next was an insurmountable aversion to any kind of revolutionary activity, even if undertaken for the purest of motives. Finally, there was his conviction that many members of the Polish elite were politically immature and irresponsible dreamers. All of this prompted RaczyÅski in his later life, especially after the revolutionary experiences of 1830â1831, to view the Polish national question without any special passionate desire for the restoration of an independent Polish state.
For RaczyÅski, the national question soon became secondary to the what he viewed as the catastrophic consequences for civilization of the dangers threatening Europe. The offensive launched by democratic and liberal forces in Europe, with their âperniciousâ demands â a representative system of government, constitutionalism, freedom of the press, recognition of public opinion as a real political force, etc. â would surely lead to the destruction of the traditional political and social order, offering terror, injustice, and destruction in return. No sacrifice was too great in order to salvage the existing structures. In his later years, RaczyÅskiâs abandoned his local perspective in favour of a global one: the existence of a state, and even a nation, may (though only temporarily) be sacrificed, because the stake in this deadly game is humanity itself. This was a radical belief, but an inevitable consequence of RaczyÅskiâs ideals.
For that he was an idealist â there can be no doubt.
A letter from Edward Rastawiecki to Józef Ignacy Kraszewski dated 19 April 1851; BJ, Kraków, 6477 IV: Correspondence of Józef Ignacy Kraszewski. Series III. Letters from 1844â1862, vol. 18, pp. 146â147.