Prometheism
Prometheism or Prometheanism (Polish: Prometeizm) was a political project initiated by
Józef Piłsudski, a principal statesman of the Second Polish Republic from 1918 to 1935. Its aim was
to weaken the Russian Empire and its successor states, including the Soviet Union, by supporting
nationalist independence movements among the major non-Russian peoples that lived within the
borders of Russia and the Soviet Union.[1]
Between the World Wars, Prometheism and Piłsudski's other concept, that of an "Intermarium
federation", constituted two complementary geopolitical strategies for him and for some of his
political heirs.[2]
Sources of Prometheism
Piłsudski's elaboration of Prometheism had been aided by an intimate
knowledge of the Russian Empire gained while exiled by its
government to eastern Siberia. The term "Prometheism" was
suggested by the Greek myth of Prometheus, whose gift of fire to
mankind, in defiance of Zeus, came to symbolize enlightenment and
resistance to despotic authority.[3]
A brief history of Poland's Promethean endeavor was set down on
February 12, 1940, by Edmund Charaszkiewicz, a Polish military
intelligence officer whose responsibilities from 1927 until the outbreak
of World War II in Europe in September 1939 had included the
coordination of Poland's Promethean program. Charaszkiewicz wrote
his paper in Paris after escaping from a Poland overrun by Nazi
Germany and the Soviet Union.[4]
Prometheus, by Gustave
Moreau, tortured on Mount
Caucasus
The creator and soul of the
Promethean concept [wrote
Charaszkiewicz] was Marshal
Piłsudski, who as early as
1904, in a memorandum to
the Japanese government,
pointed out the need to
employ, in the struggle against
Russia, the numerous nonRussian
nations
that
inhabited the basins of the
Baltic, Black and Caspian
Seas, and emphasized that the
Polish nation, by virtue of its
history, love of freedom, and
uncompromising
stance
toward [the three empires that
had partitioned Poland out of
political existence at the end
of the 18th century] would, in
Józef Piłsudski—father of
the Promethean strategy
that struggle, doubtless take a leadi
nations oppressed by Russia.[5]
A key excerpt from Piłsudski's 1904 memorandum declared:
Poland's strength and importance among the constituent parts of the Russian state
embolden us to set ourselves the political goal of breaking up the Russian state into its
main constituents and emancipating the countries that have been forcibly incorporated
into that empire. We regard this not only as the fulfilment of our country's cultural
strivings for independent existence, but also as a guarantee of that existence, since a
Russia divested of her conquests will be sufficiently weakened that she will cease to be
a formidable and dangerous neighbor.[6]
The Promethean movement, according to Charaszkiewicz, took its genesis from a national
renaissance that began in the late 19th century among many peoples of the Russian Empire. That
renaissance stemmed from a social process that led in Russia to revolution. Nearly all the socialist
parties created in the ethnically non-Russian communities assumed a national character and
placed independence at the tops of their agendas: this was so in Poland, Ukraine, Finland, Latvia,
Lithuania, Georgia and Azerbaijan. These socialist parties would take the lead in their respective
peoples' independence movements. While all these countries harbored organizations of a purely
national character that likewise championed independence, the socialist parties, precisely because
they associated the fulfilment of their strivings for independence with the social movement in
Russia, showed the greater dynamism. Ultimately the peoples of the Baltic Sea basin—Poland,
Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — won and, until World War II, all kept their
independence. The peoples of the Black and Caspian Sea basins — Ukraine, Don Cossacks, Kuban,
Crimea, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Northern Caucasus — emancipated themselves politically
in 1919–1921 but then lost their independence to Soviet Russia during the Russian Civil War.[7]
In 1917–1921, according to Charaszkiewicz, as the nations of the Baltic, Black and Caspian Sea
basins were freeing themselves from Russia's tutelage, Poland was the only country that worked
actively together with those peoples. In these efforts, Poland met with opposition from the western
coalition; the latter backed the (anticommunist) "White" Russians in their endeavor to rebuild the
erstwhile Russian Empire. At the same time, according to Charaszkiewicz, Germany, with her
occupation forces, strengthened her influences in Lithuania and Latvia, manipulated Ukraine's Lt.
Gen. Pavlo Skoropadsky toward Ukrainian federation with a possible future non-Bolshevik Russia,
and attempted a German hegemony in the Caucasus against the political interests of Germany's
ally, Turkey. Germany's true intentions were at last made manifest in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk,
concluded with the Bolsheviks in 1918.[8]
Immediately after the loss of independence by the peoples of the Black and Caspian Sea basins and
the annexation of those lands in 1921 by Soviet Russia, Poland was the only country in Europe that
gave material and moral support to the political aspirations of their Promethean (proindependence) émigrés. Only after Hitler's accession to power (January 30, 1933), states
Charaszkiewicz, would Germany begin showing a strong interest in the Promethean question.
Likewise Japan and Italy evinced some interest.[8] Nevertheless, German propaganda and
competition with Poland here notwithstanding, Germany's approach departed from the basic
ideological tenets of Prometheism; the German approach essentially constituted, in
Charaszkiewicz's words, "an elastic, opportunistic platform for diversion, amenable to exploitation
for current German political purposes in any direction." He emphasizes that in this field there
were never any organizational or ideological ties between Poland and Germany. The legitimate
national representatives of the Promethean émigrés allied with Poland showed a marked political
loyalty to Poland.[9]
Principles
Throughout the years 1918–1939, according to Charaszkiewicz, the Polish Promethean leadership
consistently observed several principles. The purpose of the Promethean enterprise was to liberate
from imperialist Russia, of whatever political stripe, the peoples of the Baltic, Black and Caspian
Sea basins and to create a series of independent states as a common defensive front against
Russian aggression. Each Promethean party respected the political sovereignty of the others. Any
disputes between Promethean parties were placed in abeyance pending the liberation of the
several parties from Russia. By mutual consent of the Polish and Ukrainian Prometheans (if
occasionally less than whole-heartedly on the Petlurists' part), largely Ukrainian-populated areas
of southeastern Poland were treated as an internal Polish sphere of interests and were off-bounds
to Ukrainian Promethean organizing.[10]
The Polish Promethean leadership, writes Charaszkiewicz, regarded the other Promethean
nationalities as equal partners in the common struggle against Russian imperialism. Contrary to
what has sometimes been thought, according to Charaszkiewicz the Polish General Staff did not
treat the various Promethean émigré communities merely as political instruments to be exploited
for ad hoc purposes of diversion.[11]
Prometheism had no organizational or political backing in any Polish political party of the left,
right or center. Within the Piłsudskiite camp [obóz Piłsudczyków] itself, Prometheism found many
opponents. Paradoxically, among young people in Poland's National Democratic Party—arch-rivals
of the Piłsudskiites [Piłsudczycy]—and some other opposition youth organizations, the
Promethean question was spontaneously taken up and gained advocates.[11]
The history of Poland's interwar collaboration with the "Promethean peoples" falls into five
periods.[11]
First period (1918–1921)
In the first period (1918–21), Poland established her new
eastern boundaries in wars with Soviet Russia and Ukraine;
her borders with Germany, in the Poznań and Silesian
uprisings, and in plebiscite operations in Warmia and
Mazury; and her southern borders in plebiscite operations
and a brief war with Czechoslovakia over disputed areas of
Cieszyn Silesia, Spisz and Orawa.[11]
Symon Petliura
Tytus Filipowicz
In the Baltic basin, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia
emerged as independent states. Poland was among the first
countries to extend them recognition,[11] although Polish-Lithuanian relations were strained
following the Polish-Lithuanian War.
In the Black and Caspian Sea basins, this period saw the emancipation of Ukraine, Crimea,
Georgia, Azerbaijan, Don, Kuban and Northern Caucasus. Signs of national renaissance also
appeared in Idel-Ural and Turkestan; there, however, it was limited to the calling of "National
Assemblies."[12]
Walery Sławek
Poland's role in the Promethean process was
marked by the conclusion of a Polish–Ukrainian
political and military alliance (the Warsaw
Agreement, April 1920) with Symon Petlura's
Ukrainian
People's
Republic,
Piłsudski's
expedition to Kiev (begun April 25, 1920), the
designation (February 1919) of Bohdan
Kutylowski as Polish minister to the Ukrainian
People's Republic, the accreditation of a Polish
minister to Caucasus, the naming of a military
mission to Caucasus, and the Crimean Republic's
motion at the League of Nations (May 17, 1920)
that Crimea be made a protectorate of Poland.[13]
Henryk Józewski
Marshal Piłsudski's immediate collaborators in this period included
Witold Jodko, Tytus Filipowicz, Gen. Julian Stachiewicz, Col. Walery
Sławek, Col. Tadeusz Schaetzel, a Maj. Czarnecki, August Zaleski, Leon
Wasilewski, Henryk Józewski, Juliusz Łukasiewicz, Tadeusz Hołówko,
Marian Szumlakowski, Jan Dąbski, Mirosław Arciszewski, Maj. Wacław
Jędrzejewicz and Roman Knoll.[14]
Second period (1921–1923)
During Poland's second Promethean period (1921–1923), after the Treaty of
Riga that ended the Polish-Soviet War, Poland went forward with her
independent life within established eastern borders alongside the Baltic
states. The states of the Black and Caspian Sea basins, however, lost their
independence, being absorbed by the Soviets. What Charaszkiewicz terms
the "legitimate" governments and political representatives of these
Promethean countries emigrated:
1. the government of the Ukrainian People's Republic, to Poland, France
and Czechoslovakia;
2. the government of Georgia, to France;
3. the government of Azerbaijan, to Turkey and France;
4. the governments of Kuban and Don, to Czechoslovakia;
5. the Northern Caucasus' Mountain National Center, to Turkey;
6. the Armenian National Center, to France;
7. the Tatar National Centers (Crimea, Idel-Ural, Turkestan), to Turkey,
France and Poland.[15]
Juliusz Łukasiewicz
Stanisław Haller
During this period, Marshal Piłsudski still remained in power, first as Chief of State (Naczelnik
Państwa), later transitionally as chief of the General Staff (Sztab Główny). Promethean affairs
now also involved the successive chiefs of the General Staff, Gen. Władysław Sikorski and Gen.
Stanisław Haller, and the chief of the General Staff's Section II (Oddział II: intelligence), Col.
Ignacy Matuszewski.[15]
Poland worked together with Promethean political émigrés who were in
official contact with Poland's Foreign Ministry, with Polish diplomatic
offices in Istanbul, Bucharest, Prague, Tehran and Paris, and with the
Polish General Staff. As early as 1922, the first group of Georgian officers,
recommended by the Georgian government, were accepted into the Polish
Army.[15]
Third period (1923–1926)
In the third period (1923–1926), after Piłsudski had removed himself from
power, successive Polish governments eliminated the Promethean question
from their agendas. The Soviets realized Joseph Stalin's nationalities
program in the Soviet Union's non-Russian areas by inaugurating the
Autonomous Republics, while suppressing the last impulses toward
independence on the part of those Republics' populations.[16]
Polish contacts with the Promethean émigrés were continued, without the
knowledge or consent of the Polish government: in military matters, by Col.
Schaetzel, Maj. Czarnecki and Captain Henryk Suchanek-Suchecki, chief of the
Nationalities Department (Wydział) in the Ministry of Internal Affairs; and at
the Foreign Ministry, by the chief of the Eastern Department, Juliusz
Łukasiewicz. An exception to the Polish government's official attitude
pertained to Georgian Prometheism, which enjoyed support with both the
foreign minister, Aleksander Skrzyński, and the chief of the General Staff, Gen.
Stanisław Haller.[16]
Władysław Sikorski
Joseph Stalin
Fourth period (1926–1932)
The fourth period (1926–1932), from Piłsudski's return to power in the May 1926 Coup to the
conclusion of the 1932 Polish-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, was the period of the most determined,
organized and active collaboration with Promethean organizations.[16]
In 1927 the Promethean problem was given official organizational form at the Polish Foreign
Ministry and General Staff. In the previous periods, Prometheism had been treated at various high
echelons but had possessed no single official home. Now a close coordination was established
between Poland's Foreign Ministry and General Staff, as politically representing the Promethean
question, and with the ministries of Military Affairs and Internal Affairs, as indirectly involved
with it (the Military Ministry, with foreign contract officers; the Internal Ministry, with internal
Polish-Ukrainian affairs).[16]
Important events in this period included:
General Promethean affairs
1. the creation of an Eastern Institute in Warsaw, with a program in Near and Far Eastern studies,
the Institute being treated as a political instrument for general Promethean matters;
2. the establishment, at the Eastern Institute, of an Orientalist Youth Circle, a youth organization
dedicated to general Promethean affairs, with offices in Kraków, Vilnius and Harbin;
3. the founding of a quarterly, Wschód (The East), devoted to Promethean affairs;
4. the establishment of academic scholarships for Promethean students at Warsaw, Vilnius,
Poznań, Kraków, Paris, Berlin and Cairo;
5. the founding of four Promethean clubs, in Warsaw, Paris, Helsinki and Harbin;
6. the founding, in Paris and Helsinki, of the propaganda monthlies, Promethee and Prometheus;
7. the establishment of collaborative links with France-Orient in Paris.[17]
Ukrainian affairs
1. the organization of a military staff for the Ukrainian People's Republic, including an
organizational-operational section (subordinate to Poland's Gen. Julian Stachiewicz), an
intelligence section (subordinate to Poland's Section II), and a propaganda section
(subordinate to the Polish General Staff's Office Z);
2. the recruitment of Petlurist Ukrainian officers as contract officers for the Polish Army;
3. the creation of three separate press agencies: in Warsaw ("A.T.E."), Paris ("Ofinor") and
Bucharest ("Ukraintag");
4. the founding of a Polish-Ukrainian Bulletin;
5. the creation in Warsaw of a Ukrainian Institute of Learning;
6. the founding of a General Ukrainian Council coordinating Petlurist émigré centers in European
countries.[17]
This period saw two fundamental political events in Ukrainian Promethean affairs:
the May 26, 1926, assassination, in Paris –– according to Charaszkiewicz, at Soviet instigation
–– of Otaman Symon Petlura; and
the 1930 trial, in Kiev, of Serhiy Yefremov, which demonstrated the existence of a secret
national organization in Ukraine that was in contact with the Government of the Ukrainian
People's Republic.[17]
Caucasus affairs
1. organization, in Turkey and Iran, of offices for contacts with
Azerbaijan, Georgia, and the Caucasus Mountains (the Georgian
organization carried out about 20 expeditions to their country,
and the Caucasian Mountain organization kept up regular
contacts with their country on at least a monthly basis);
2. creation of a Caucasus National Committee and the elaboration
of a constitution for a Caucasus Confederation;
3. recruitment into the Polish Army, as contract officers, of a further
group of Georgian officers, and of Azerbaijanis and Caucasus
Mountaineers, upon recommendation by their legitimate national
representatives.[18]
This period saw the following notable political events in Caucasus
affairs:
Noe Ramishvili
the December 7, 1930, assassination in Paris, by the Soviets, of
the Georgian minister Noe Ramishvili; and
pronouncements by Shalva Eliava, the "Soviet governor of Caucasus," at the 1930 Georgian
communist congress in Tiflis, that the national movement in the Caucasus was under the
influence of the Caucasus National Committee.[19]
The growing revolutionary ferment in the Caucasus, especially in Azerbaijan, collaboratively
engaged all the Caucasus national elements.[19]
Idel-Ural and Turkestan affairs
1. the development of pro-independence propaganda in Idel-Ural, Crimea and Turkestan, and
intense Soviet polemics against the Promethean press;
2. the establishment of ties with these countries;
3. direct participation in the World Moslem Congress in Jerusalem (1931), whose political aspect,
due to the participation of Promethean representatives (Said Shamil, a Caucasus Mountaineer
and grandson of Imam Shamil, and Ğayaz İsxaqí, a Kazan Tatar intellectual), turned against
the Soviet Union. In this period, the world Moslem press, especially of Egypt and Arabia,
conducted an intense anti-Soviet campaign. Said Shamil Bey was chosen as secretary of the
Congress' executive center.[19]
Charaszkiewicz notes the occurrence, in Crimean political actions, of "Wallenrodism," revealed at
the trial of Veli Ibrahim, who was sentenced to death by the Soviets. Likewise the trial of
Soltanğäliev (a direct collaborator of Joseph Stalin's during Stalin's tenure as commissar for
nationalities affairs) disclosed methods used by the Volga Tatars and the peoples of Turkestan in
fighting the Soviet government.[20]
Cossack affairs
A successful campaign was waged that helped stimulate a separatist movement among many
Cossack émigré groups. This injected a substantial political diversion into White Russian émigré
ranks.[21]
This Prometheist period also witnessed a development that was independent of the movement, but
which would ultimately play a role in regard to it. There was heightened diversionary activity in
Poland by the OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists), supported by both Germany and
Czechoslovakia and even by Lithuania. There were many acts of expropriation and sabotage
against the Polish community and government by members of OUN combat units in southeastern
Poland. This in turn led to "pacification" operations by the Polish authorities against the PolishUkrainian community.[21]
The pacifications, Charaszkiewicz emphasizes, were never discussed in advance with Polish
Promethean officials. Those at the Foreign Ministry and at the General Staff were not pleased with
these operations, which made Promethean activities that much more difficult.[21]
A greater shock to the Prometheists, Polish and Ukrainian, however, was the death of Tadeusz
Hołówko, murdered by OUN members on August 29, 1931, at Truskawiec.[21]
Charaszkiewicz is far from blaming all of Poland's difficulties with her minorities, especially the
Ukrainians (who in most of southeastern interwar Poland were the majority), on external,
especially German, influences. He argues that Poland had "no planned, consistent and
constructive internal policy" with regard to her minorities. This lack could not bode well for the
Promethean effort, when every fifth Polish citizen (that is, six million people) were Ukrainian.[22]
Moreover, the Soviet Union sought to an equal degree to exploit Poland's internal disarray —
indeed, in 1921–31, to a greater degree than the Germans. Soviet communist propaganda in
Poland's Eastern Borderlands (Kresy Wschodnie), combined with a pro-Ukrainian Soviet attitude
toward Soviet Ukraine, created strong pro-Soviet sentiment among Polish Ukrainians. This
sentiment would persist until the subsequent mass Soviet resettlements, arrests, executions and
famines of 1933–1938.[23]
The period 1926–1932 was marked by the participation of a large number of Poles in the
Promethean endeavor:
1. at the Foreign Ministry: Tadeusz Hołówko, Tadeusz Schaetzel, Stanisław Hempel, Adam
Tarnowski, Mirosław Arciszewski, Roman Knoll, Juliusz Łukasiewicz, Marian Szumlakowski,
Stanisław Zaċwilichowski, Jan Gawroński, Zygmunt Mostowski, Władysław Zaleski, Kazimierz
Marian Wyszyński, Karol Dubicz-Penther, Władysław Pelc, Ksawery Zalewski, Władysław
Wolski, Piotr Kurnicki, Wacław Knoll;
1. at the General Staff: Brig. Gen. Julian Stachiewicz, Col. Tadeusz
Schaetzel, Col. Tadeusz Pełczyński, Col. Józef Englicht, Maj.
Edmund Charaszkiewicz, Maj. Włodzimierz Dąbrowski, Maj.
Stanisław Gliński, Maj. Jerzy Krzymowski, Maj. Karol KrzewskiLilienfeld, Capt. Stefan Nowaczek, Capt. Jan Rybczyński, Lt. Jan
Helcman, Józef Skarżyński, Aleksander Eugeniusz Piwnicki, Stefan
Sipa, Lt. Antoni Zaręba;
2. at the Ministry of Internal Affairs: Henryk Suchanek-Suchecki,
Stanisław Łaniecki, Emil Miśkiewicz;
3. at the Ministry of Education: Aleksander Kawałkowski, Franciszek
Salezy Potocki, Zdzisław Meyer, Juliusz Znaniecki, Adam Miłobędzki;
4. in the socio-political sphere: Senator Stanisław Siedlecki (president
Tadeusz Schaetzel
of the Eastern Institute), Wacław Sieroszewski, Stanisław Trzeciak,
Antoni Wincenty Kwiatkowski, Antoni Około-Kułak, Prof. Olgierd
Górka (general secretary and director of the Eastern Institute),
Stanisław Korwin-Pawłowski (general secretary of the Eastern Institute),
Bolesław Bielawski, Stanisław Józef Paprocki (director of the Institute
for Study of National Minority Affairs), Leon Wasilewski, Włodzimierz
Bączkowski, Feliks Ibiański-Zahora, Wacław Wincenty Łypacewicz,
Władysław Wielhorski (director of the Institute for Study of Eastern
Europe, in Vilnius), Marian Świechowski, Prof. Jan Kucharzewski, Prof.
Marceli Handelsman, Prof. Stanisław Poniatowski, Prof. Ludwik
Kolankowski, Prof. Oskar Halecki, Prof. Stanisław Franciszek
Zajączkowski, Prof. Józef Ujejski, Prof. Stanisław Szober, Andrzej
Tadeusz Pełczyński
Strug, Marian Malinowski, Alfred Szczęsny Wielopolski, Wojciech
Stpiczyński, Józef Łobodowski, Prof. Marian Zdziechowski, Władysław
Woydyno.[24]
Additionally, thanks to Tadeusz Hołówko's exceptional leadership in
Promethean matters, a number of Polish government ministers participated
indirectly or directly: Walery Sławek, Aleksander Prystor, August Zaleski,
Janusz Jędrzejewicz, Wacław Jędrzejewicz, Bronisław Pieracki, Adam Koc,
Stefan Starzyński, Marian Zyndram-Kościałkowski.[25]
A separate category of Promethean ideological endeavor comprised the work
of Adam Skwarczyński.[26]
In this period (1926–1932), favorable political circumstances within and
without Poland, adequate financing and, above all, full mutual confidence
among all the participants, led to an exceptional level of Promethean activity —
in the conduct of propaganda within the Promethean countries, in the political
efforts of the Promethean émigrés, and in propaganda outside Poland.[26]
Wacław
Jędrzejewicz
Regular conferences were held, usually involving Tadeusz Hołówko, Brig. Gen.
Julian Stachiewicz, Col. Tadeusz Schaetzel, Henryk Suchanek-Suchecki, Maj.
Edmund Charaszkiewicz, and an official from the Foreign Ministry.
Charaszkiewicz would present an extensive report on work accomplished, and
this would be followed by discussion of various Promethean topics.[26]
The Promethean project was entrusted to Office 2 only in late 1927 or perhaps
in 1928. Before that, it had never been a domain of the Polish General Staff's
diversion unit (Office A.1, later Office U); thus Charaszkiewicz's predecessor,
Col. Puszczyński, had not been encumbered with this responsibility.
Puszczyński, Charaszkiewicz explains, had not initially attached importance to
Prometheism, due to an overoptimistic assessment of the new Soviet Union;
but in time he came to support the Promethean concept.[27]
Aleksander
Prystor
Fifth period (1933–1939)
The last, fifth period of prewar Polish Prometheism (1933–1939)
was, in Charaszkiewicz's words, one of "seven lean years." A number
of developments contributed to this:
1. The Polish-Soviet non-aggression pact (1932) stopped Polish
policy-makers from continuing Promethean work in the field. It
was felt that in the Soviet Union a process of national renewal
was to some extent taking place spontaneously in the
Promethean countries, thanks to the existence of autonomous
republics, to Soviet support of general education in the national
Stefan Starzyński
languages, and to natural reactions of protest among local
peoples to economic, religious and cultural phenomena; and so
activity on the ground could be dispensed with for the moment.
The solidarity and strength of the political émigré communities should, however, continue to be
maintained. The conclusion of the Polish-Soviet pact led to the Polish Foreign Ministry and all
Polish governmental authorities distancing themselves from external Promethean
undertakings. This substantially reduced the effectiveness of those endeavors and created a
view in international Promethean circles that Poland was slowly moving away from
Prometheism. Henceforth the whole Promethean question, including the administration of
funds, became concentrated within Office 2 at the General Staff's Section II (intelligence).
2. The deaths of Ramishvili and Zaćwilichowski (1930) and of Hołówko (1931), the most active
promoters of Prometheism, were an irreparable loss to the movement.
3. The worldwide economic crisis, and resultant austere government budgets, suddenly reduced
available funds by nearly 50%, bringing all Polish efforts down to merest maintenance levels.
4. The death (May 12, 1935) of Marshal Piłsudski, founder of Prometheism, was yet another
powerful blow. In Charaszkiewicz's view, it left Prometheism — "a political idea of rare
visionary power... that required prophetic [powers of] political prediction" — lacking a patron of
comparable authority. Piłsudski's death was experienced as a personal loss by the
Promethean peoples. Henceforth the movement's efforts continued more by virtue of inertia
than by encouragement from new Polish decision-makers.
5. Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany, the creation of an anticommunist bloc in the BerlinRome-Tokyo axis, and its eagerness to collaborate with national Promethean movements,
created a difficult, complicated situation for the Promethean organizations that remained in
Poland's political orbit. While the Promethean political forces aligned with Poland were of
higher quality and potential, the Germans' relentless propaganda created a dangerous rival to
Polish Promethean efforts. The latter in this period, according to Charaszkiewicz, "were utterly
devoid of activity, character and plan."
6. The rise of danger on Poland's west fostered a view in many Polish minds that the country's
eastern border should be quieted.[28]
Until Piłsudski's death in 1935, little changed in respect to personnel on
the Polish Promethean side, apart from the official distancing of
government leaders, especially in the Foreign Ministry, due to the
concluded Polish-Soviet pact. With the shift in government leadership
beginning in June 1935, there ensued a clear decline in Polish
Promethean leadership. The "group of colonels" lost their influence; Col.
Tadeusz Pełczyński took a much less active role; and his successor, Col.
Marian Józef Smoleński (generally known as "Józef Smoleński"), and
Charaszkiewicz's immediate superior, Col. Jan Kazimierz Ciastoń, did
not embrace Prometheism. Tadeusz Kobylański, Col. Schaetzel's
successor as chief of the Foreign Ministry's Eastern Department, though
Wacław Stachiewicz
inclined to support Prometheism, lacked a deep enough political
foundation and faced substantial financial impediments. The attitudes of
Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły and the chief of the General Staff,
Brigadier General Wacław Teofil Stachiewicz, remained to the last uncertain.[29]
World War II and since
The Promethean agenda continued, during World War II, to interest other countries, including
Germany (especially in regard to Ukraine), Finland (struggling with the Soviet Union), France and
the Soviet Union's neighbor, Turkey.[30]
Edmund Charaszkiewicz concluded his February 12, 1940, Paris paper with the observation that
"Poland's turning away from these [Promethean] processes can in no way halt [them], while
leaving us sidelined and exposing us to enormous losses that flow from the age-old principle that
'those who are absent, lose.' [Poland]'s central position in the Promethean chain dictates to us
readiness and presence at any disintegrative processes in Russia, and a leading Polish
participation at their accomplishment."[31]
After World War II, the Government of Poland was effectively a puppet state of the Soviet Union
and was in no position to resume an acknowledged Promethean program. Despite this, the Polish
people, through Solidarity, played a major role in the breakup of the Soviet Union. The 1991
disintegration of the Soviet Union largely vindicated the predictions of those Poles and others who
had anticipated the event and, in some cases, had worked for it.
On November 22, 2007, at Tbilisi, Georgia, a statue of Prometheus was dedicated by Georgian
President Mikheil Saakashvili and Polish President Lech Kaczyński. Erected in the land where,
according to Greek myth, the Titan had been imprisoned and tortured by Zeus after stealing fire
from Olympus and giving it to man, the statue celebrates the efforts of Poles and Georgians to
achieve the independence of Georgia and of other peoples from the Russian Empire and its
successor state, the Soviet Union.
See also
Alliance of the periphery - similar political tactics used by Israel
Demographics of the Soviet Union
Edmund Charaszkiewicz
Giedroyc Doctrine
Historical demographics of Poland
History of Polish intelligence services
Kultura
Lenin's national policy
Intermarium (Międzymorze)
Polish–Georgian alliance
Predictions of Soviet collapse
Treaty of Warsaw (1920) (also known as the Polish-Ukrainian alliance)
URSAL
Volhynia Experiment
Notes
1. Richard Woytak, "The Promethean Movement in Interwar Poland," East European Quarterly,
vol. XVIII, no. 3 (September 1984), pp. 273–78.
2. "Pilsudski hoped to build not merely a Polish nation state but a greater federation of peoples
under the aegis of Poland which would replace Russia as the great power of Eastern Europe.
Lithuania, Belorussia and Ukraine were all to be included. His plan called for a truncated and
vastly reduced Russia, a plan which excluded negotiations prior to military victory." Richard K
Debo, Survival and Consolidation: The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, 1918–1992, Google
Print, p. 59 (https://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0773508287&id=gQfUB0CXBO4C&pg=
PA59&lpg=PA59&vq=excluded+negotiations&dq=0773508287&sig=9NMfQrVB6Hqy6Jow-Ii3G
4yld2U), McGill-Queen's Press, 1992, ISBN 0-7735-0828-7.
3. In ethics, "Prometheism" is an individual's voluntary subordination of self to the good of a
larger social group or even all mankind. This altruistic concept relates to the myth of
Prometheus, and denotes rebellion against divine decrees and natural forces, and selfsacrifice for the sake of the general good. In literature, the Promethean stance is exemplified
by Kordian in Juliusz Słowacki's Romantic drama Kordian (1834); by Konrad in Part III of Adam
Mickiewicz's Forefathers' Eve (Dziady); by Dr. Judym in Stefan Żeromski's Homeless People
(Ludzie Bezdomni, 1899); by the Biblical Adam in Jan Kasprowicz's Dies irae (Latin for Day of
Wrath); and by Dr. Rieux in Albert Camus's The Plague (1947).
4. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, pp. 14–16, 56, 76, 81.
5. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, p. 56.
6. Quoted in Charaszkiewicz, 2000, p. 56.
7. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, pp. 56–57.
8. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, p. 57.
9. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, pp. 57–58.
10. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, pp. 58–59.
11. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, p. 59.
12. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, pp. 59–60.
13. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, p. 60.
14. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, pp. 60–61.
15. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, p. 62.
16. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, p. 63.
17. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, p. 64.
18. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, pp. 64–65.
19. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, p. 65.
20. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, pp. 65–66.
21. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, p. 66.
22. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, pp. 66–67.
23. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, p. 67.
24. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, pp. 67-74.
25. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, p. 75.
26. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, p. 76.
27. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, pp. 76–77.
28. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, pp. 77–78.
29. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, pp. 78–79.
30. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, pp. 79–80.
31. Charaszkiewicz, 2000, p. 80.
References
Edmund Charaszkiewicz, Zbiór dokumentów ppłk. Edmunda Charaszkiewicza, opracowanie,
wstęp i przypisy (A Collection of Documents by Lt. Col. Edmund Charaszkiewicz, edited, with
introduction and notes by) Andrzej Grzywacz, Marcin Kwiecień, Grzegorz Mazur (Biblioteka
Centrum Dokumentacji Czynu Niepodległościowego, tom [vol.] 9), Kraków, Księgarnia
Akademicka, 2000, ISBN 978-83-7188-449-8.
Edmund Charaszkiewicz, "Przebudowa wschodu Europy" ("The Restructuring of Eastern
Europe"), Niepodległość (Independence), London, 1955, pp. 125–67.
Etienne Copeaux, Le mouvement prométhéen. (http://www.ceri-sciencespo.com/publica/cemot
i/textes16/copeaux.pdf) Cahiers d'études sur la Méditerranée orientale et le monde turcoiranien, n° 16, juillet–décembre 1993, pp. 9–45.
M.K. Dziewanowski, Joseph Pilsudski: a European Federalist, 1918–1922, Stanford, Hoover
Institution, 1979.
Jonathan Levy, The Intermarium: Madison, Wilson and East Central European Federalism,
2007, ISBN 978-1-58112-369-2.
Sergiusz Mikulicz, Prometeizm w polityce II Rzeczypospolitej (Prometheism in the Policies of
the Second [Polish] Republic), Warsaw, Książka i Wiedza, 1971.
Włodzimierz Bączkowski, O wschodnich problemach Polski. Wybór pism (Poland's Eastern
Problems: Selected Writings). Opracował (Edited by) Paweł Kowal, Kraków, Ośrodek Myśli
Politycznej, 2000, ISBN 978-83-7188-405-4.
Włodzimierz Bączkowski, Czy prometeizm jest fikcją i fantazją (Is Prometheism a Fiction and
Fantasy?) <http://www.omp.org.pl/index.php?
module=subjects&func=printpage&pageid=7&scope=all>
Zaur Gasimov, "Zwischen Freiheitstopoi und Antikommunismus: Ordnungsentwürfe für Europa
im Spiegel der polnischen Zeitung Przymierze", Jahrbuch für Europäische Geschichte, no. 12,
2011, pp. 207–22.
Zaur Gasimov, "Der Antikommunismus in Polen im Spiegel der Vierteljahresschrift Wschód
1930–1939", Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung, 2011, pp. 15–30.
Zaur Gasimov, José María Faraldo Jarillo: Las alianzas desde arriba: los nacionalismos
antirrusos y antisoviéticos (1914–1939) De la Liga de los Pueblos Alófonos de Rusia a la Liga
Prometeo, in: Patrias diversas, ¿misma lucha?: Alianzas transnacionalistas en el mundo de
entreguerras (1912–1939) / Enric Ucelay Da Cal (ed. lit.), Xosé M. Núñez Seixas (ed. lit.),
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I.P. Maj, Działalność Instytutu Wschodniego w Warszawie 1926–1939 (The Work of Warsaw's
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Timothy Snyder, Covert Polish Missions across the Soviet Ukrainian Border, 1928–1933 (p.55
(https://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN8849812760&id=TQR5YSY-b1QC&pg=PA55&lpg=
PA77&sig=Wl4yypcxmLb8qcHAnT2tYmdtPZA), p.56 (https://books.google.com/books?vid=ISB
N8849812760&id=TQR5YSY-b1QC&pg=PA56&lpg=PA77&sig=GbZTRk2b-RS4ZH2t3ACOOQ
UayJc), p.57 (https://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN8849812760&id=TQR5YSY-b1QC&pg
=PA57&lpg=PA77&sig=h0O7n586kusn5R1lcEYg6Rr2aeg), p.58 (https://books.google.com/bo
oks?vid=ISBN8849812760&id=TQR5YSY-b1QC&pg=PA77&lpg=PA77&sig=4caX_oMm1TLCt
mRTOCFtnf9PvvM), p.59 (https://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN8849812760&id=TQR5Y
SY-b1QC&pg=PA78), in Confini, Silvia Salvatici (a cura di), Rubbettino, 2005). Full text in PDF
(https://web.archive.org/web/20080227130119/http://www.sissco.it/fileadmin/user_upload/Pubb
licazioni/collanasissco/confini/confini_snyder.pdf)
Timothy Snyder, Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet
Ukraine, Yale University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-300-10670-X (p.41 (https://books.google.com/bo
oks?vid=ISBN978-0-300-10670-1&id=LkZlidUKEl8C&pg=PA41&lpg=PA41), p.42 (https://book
s.google.com/books?vid=ISBN030010670X&id=LkZlidUKEl8C&pg=PA42&lpg=PA41&sig=N_A
L-wnlV0LiacmtW0hF6XU5N3k), p.43 (https://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN030010670X
&id=LkZlidUKEl8C&pg=PA43&lpg=PA41&sig=4vb9zLlSd_Wl1BRP2EWcF-3jCvI)) Describes
the careers of Henryk Józewski.
Richard Woytak, "The Promethean Movement in Interwar Poland," East European Quarterly,
vol. XVIII, no. 3 (September 1984), pp. 273–78. Woytak cites extensively from Edmund
Charaszkiewicz, "a key figure and an expert on the Promethean movement in Polish
intelligence circles."
David X. Noack: Die polnische Bewegung des Prometheismus im globalgeschichtlichen
Kontext 1918–1939, in: Österreichische Militärische Zeitschrift, Bd. 52, H. 2 (2014), S. 187–
192.
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