Christ of Europe
Encyclopedia
The Christ of Europe is the messianic
doctrine
based in New Testament
, first popularized among various Europe
an nations by the Church of Jesus Christ of Europe in the 16th to the 18th centuries. The doctrine, based in principles of brotherly esteem and regard for one another, was adopted in messianic
terms by the Polish Romantics
who referred to their homeland as the Christ of Europe or the Christ of Nations crucified during the foreign partitions of Poland
. Their own unsuccessful struggle for independence from outside powers served as an expression of faith in Poland's ultimate Rising.
The image of Poland
as the Christ of Europe was first evoked by Adam Mickiewicz
in his tragic
poetical
play
Dziady
, considered one of the great works of European Romanticism
. The drama was written in the aftermath of the 1830 Uprising
against the Russian rulership – an event that greatly impacted the author. Mickiewicz had helped found a student society (the Philomaths
) protesting the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
and was exiled to central Russia as a result. In the poet's vision, the persecution and suffering of the Poles was to bring salvation to other persecuted nations, just as the death of Christ – crucified by its neighbors – brought redemption to mankind. Thus, the phrase Poland the Christ of Nations ("Polska Chrystusem narodów") was born.
The concept identified Poles collectively with the messianic suffering, and saw Poland as being destined to return to glory just as Christ was. The idea had roots going back to the Ottoman Empire
and the wars against the Muslim
Turks
, but was reawakened and promoted during the Mickiewicz's exile in Paris in his drama Dziady through a vision of priest called Piotr (Part III).
Several analysts see the concept as persisting into the modern era. According to some Holocaust
scholars, this view has led to a distorted approach to Polish history following World War II
. It has made past Polish wrongdoings against other nationalities sometimes hard or impossible to acknowledge.
The Polish
self image as a "Christ among nations" or the martyr of Europe can be traced back to its history of Christendom
and suffering under invasions. During the period when Polish lands were under foreign occupation the Catholic Church served as bastion of national identity and language, and the major promoter of Polish culture. The invasion by Protestant Sweden in 1656 known as the Deluge helped to strengthen the Polish national tie to Catholicism. The Swedes targeted the national identity and religion of the Poles by destroying its religious symbols. The monastery of Jasna Góra held out against the Swedes and took on the role of a national sanctuary. According to Anthony Smith, even today the Jasna Góra Madonna is part of a mass religious cult tied to nationalism.
Long before Poland was partitioned the privileged classes (szlachta
) developed a vision of Roman Catholic Poland (Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth at the time) as a nation destined to wage war against Tartars, Turks
, Russians
, in the defense of Christian Western civilization (Antemurale Christianitatis
). The Messianic tradition was stoked by the Warsaw Franciscan Wojciech Dębołęcki who in 1633 made a prophecy of the defeat of the Turks and the world supremacy of the Slavs, themselves in turn led by Poland.
A key element in the Polish view as the guarder of Christianity was the 1683 victory at Vienna
against the Turks by John Sobieski III.
Beginning in 1772 Poland suffered a series of partitions
by it neighbors Austria, Prussia and Russia, that threatened it national existence.
The partitions came to be seen in Poland as a Polish sacrifice for the security for Western civilization.
The failure of the west to support Poland in its 1830 uprising
led to the development of a view of Poland as betrayed, suffering, a "Christ of Nations" that was paying for the sins of Europe.
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After the failed uprising 10,000 Poles emigrated to France, including much of the elite. There they came to promote a view of Poland as a heroic victim of Russian tyranny. One of them, Adam Mickiewicz
, the foremost 19th century Polish romanticism poet wrote the patriotic drama Dziady (directed against the Russians) where he depicts Poland as the Christ of Nations. He also wrote "Verily I say unto you, it is not for you to learn civilization from foreigners, but it is you who are to teach them civilization... You are among the foreigners like the Apostles among the idolaters".
In "Books of the Polish nation and Polish pilgrimage" Mickiewicz detailed his vision of Poland as a Messias and a Christ of Nations, that would save mankind.
Later, the Polish 20th century dictator general Józef Piłsudski adhered to the view of Poland as a western shield, and also saw Poland as having a "civilizing mission" in the east and Romantics in Poland believed they were the "chosen people
" with a destiny to civilize the eastern Slavs. Piłsudski was an adherent of this conviction, which led him to launch his war against the Soviet Union in 1920.
The last western failure to support Poland, in Poland labeled Western betrayal
, came in 1945, at the Yalta conference
where the future fate of Europe was being negotiated the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt
told Soviet premier Joseph Stalin
"Poland... has been a source of trouble for over 500 years". The western powers did not attempt to grant Poland the "victor power" status that France was given, despite the Polish military contribution.
During the communist period going to church was a sign of rebellion against the communist regime. During the time of communist martial law in 1981 it became popular to return to the messianic tradition by for example women wearing the Polish eagle on a black cross, jewelry popular after the failed uprising in 1863.
Partly due to communist influenced education (that used is as a symbol of martyrdom of anti-Nazi and anti-fascist resistance), during the Communist era Auschwitz came to take on different meanings for Jews and Poles, with Poles seeing themselves as the "principal martyrs" of the camp.
The Catholic Church, in addition to having provided the main support for the solidarity movement that replaced the communists, also has deep roots of being wedded to the Polish national identity. Polish society is currently struggling with the question of how deeply the Catholic Church shall be allowed to remain attached to Polish national identity.
This national narrative came under increased scrutiny during the late 20th century, particularly during the controversies surrounding the Auschwitz cross
and the Jedwabne massacre. In 2000 Jan T. Gross
published a book
which examined a massacre of Jews by Poles in July 1941 and argued that "collective, national martyrology" has made it difficult to acknowledge episodes of anti-Semitism in which Poles were perpetrators rather than victims. Journalist Tina Rosenberg
believes that a "martyr nation" self-conception has dominated the Polish response to revelations about Polish treatment of the Jews in the Jedwabne massacre. She writes that in the resulting debates some have claimed that Jews were trying to slander Poland or have justified past attacks on Jews by alleging Jewish connections to the communists (see Żydokomuna
).
In 1990 Rev. Stanisław Musiał, deputy editor of a leading Catholic newspaper and with a close relationship to then Pope John Paul II called for a Polish reappraisal of history that would take these critiques of nationalist ideology seriously. "We have a mythology of ourselves as martyr nation", he wrote. "We are always good. The others are bad. With this national image, it was absolutely impossible that Polish people could do bad things to others."
Messiah
A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...
doctrine
Doctrine
Doctrine is a codification of beliefs or a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the body of teachings in a branch of knowledge or belief system...
based in New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
, first popularized among various Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an nations by the Church of Jesus Christ of Europe in the 16th to the 18th centuries. The doctrine, based in principles of brotherly esteem and regard for one another, was adopted in messianic
Messianism
Messianism is the belief in a messiah, a savior or redeemer. Many religions have a messiah concept, including the Jewish Messiah, the Christian Christ, the Muslim Mahdi and Isa , the Buddhist Maitreya, the Hindu Kalki and the Zoroastrian Saoshyant...
terms by the Polish Romantics
Romanticism in Poland
Romanticism in Poland was a literary, artistic and intellectual period in the evolution of Polish culture that began around 1820, coinciding with the publication of Adam Mickiewicz's first poems in 1822. It ended with the suppression of the January 1863 Uprising against the Russian Empire in 1864. ...
who referred to their homeland as the Christ of Europe or the Christ of Nations crucified during the foreign partitions of Poland
Partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years...
. Their own unsuccessful struggle for independence from outside powers served as an expression of faith in Poland's ultimate Rising.
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
as the Christ of Europe was first evoked by Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...
in his tragic
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
poetical
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
play
Play (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
Dziady
Dziady (poem)
Dziady is a poetic drama by the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz. It is considered one of the great works of European Romanticism. To George Sand and George Brandes, Dziady was a supreme realization of Romantic drama theory, to be ranked with such works as Goethe's Faust and Byron's Manfred.The...
, considered one of the great works of European Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
. The drama was written in the aftermath of the 1830 Uprising
November Uprising
The November Uprising , Polish–Russian War 1830–31 also known as the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in the heartland of partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. The uprising began on 29 November 1830 in Warsaw when the young Polish officers from the local Army of the Congress...
against the Russian rulership – an event that greatly impacted the author. Mickiewicz had helped found a student society (the Philomaths
Philomaths
The Philomaths, or Philomath Society , was a secret student organization that existed from 1817 to 1823 at the Imperial University of Vilnius.-History:...
) protesting the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years...
and was exiled to central Russia as a result. In the poet's vision, the persecution and suffering of the Poles was to bring salvation to other persecuted nations, just as the death of Christ – crucified by its neighbors – brought redemption to mankind. Thus, the phrase Poland the Christ of Nations ("Polska Chrystusem narodów") was born.
The concept identified Poles collectively with the messianic suffering, and saw Poland as being destined to return to glory just as Christ was. The idea had roots going back to the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
and the wars against the Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
Turks
Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...
, but was reawakened and promoted during the Mickiewicz's exile in Paris in his drama Dziady through a vision of priest called Piotr (Part III).
Several analysts see the concept as persisting into the modern era. According to some Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
scholars, this view has led to a distorted approach to Polish history following World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. It has made past Polish wrongdoings against other nationalities sometimes hard or impossible to acknowledge.
Historical development
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
self image as a "Christ among nations" or the martyr of Europe can be traced back to its history of Christendom
Christendom
Christendom, or the Christian world, has several meanings. In a cultural sense it refers to the worldwide community of Christians, adherents of Christianity...
and suffering under invasions. During the period when Polish lands were under foreign occupation the Catholic Church served as bastion of national identity and language, and the major promoter of Polish culture. The invasion by Protestant Sweden in 1656 known as the Deluge helped to strengthen the Polish national tie to Catholicism. The Swedes targeted the national identity and religion of the Poles by destroying its religious symbols. The monastery of Jasna Góra held out against the Swedes and took on the role of a national sanctuary. According to Anthony Smith, even today the Jasna Góra Madonna is part of a mass religious cult tied to nationalism.
Long before Poland was partitioned the privileged classes (szlachta
Szlachta
The szlachta was a legally privileged noble class with origins in the Kingdom of Poland. It gained considerable institutional privileges during the 1333-1370 reign of Casimir the Great. In 1413, following a series of tentative personal unions between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of...
) developed a vision of Roman Catholic Poland (Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth at the time) as a nation destined to wage war against Tartars, Turks
Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...
, Russians
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
, in the defense of Christian Western civilization (Antemurale Christianitatis
Antemurale Christianitatis
Antemurale Christianitatis was a country defending frontiers of Christian Europe from the Ottoman Empire....
). The Messianic tradition was stoked by the Warsaw Franciscan Wojciech Dębołęcki who in 1633 made a prophecy of the defeat of the Turks and the world supremacy of the Slavs, themselves in turn led by Poland.
A key element in the Polish view as the guarder of Christianity was the 1683 victory at Vienna
Battle of Vienna
The Battle of Vienna took place on 11 and 12 September 1683 after Vienna had been besieged by the Ottoman Empire for two months...
against the Turks by John Sobieski III.
Beginning in 1772 Poland suffered a series of partitions
Partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years...
by it neighbors Austria, Prussia and Russia, that threatened it national existence.
The partitions came to be seen in Poland as a Polish sacrifice for the security for Western civilization.
The failure of the west to support Poland in its 1830 uprising
November Uprising
The November Uprising , Polish–Russian War 1830–31 also known as the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in the heartland of partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. The uprising began on 29 November 1830 in Warsaw when the young Polish officers from the local Army of the Congress...
led to the development of a view of Poland as betrayed, suffering, a "Christ of Nations" that was paying for the sins of Europe.
Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...
, the foremost 19th century Polish romanticism poet wrote the patriotic drama Dziady (directed against the Russians) where he depicts Poland as the Christ of Nations. He also wrote "Verily I say unto you, it is not for you to learn civilization from foreigners, but it is you who are to teach them civilization... You are among the foreigners like the Apostles among the idolaters".
In "Books of the Polish nation and Polish pilgrimage" Mickiewicz detailed his vision of Poland as a Messias and a Christ of Nations, that would save mankind.
-
- "And Poland said, ‘Whosoever will come to me shall be free and equal for I am FREEDOM.’ But the Kings, when they heard it, were frightened in their hearts, and they crucified the Polish nation and laid it in its grave, crying out ‘We have slain and buried Freedom.’ But they cried out foolishly….
- "For the Polish Nation did not die. Its body lieth in the grave; but its spirit has descended into the abyss, that is, into the private lives of people who suffer slavery in their own country…. For on the Third Day, the Soul shall return to the Body; and the Nation shall arise and free all the peoples of Europe from Slavery."
Later, the Polish 20th century dictator general Józef Piłsudski adhered to the view of Poland as a western shield, and also saw Poland as having a "civilizing mission" in the east and Romantics in Poland believed they were the "chosen people
Chosen people
Throughout history and even today various groups of people have considered themselves as chosen by a deity for some purpose such as to act as the deity's agent on earth. In monotheistic faiths, like Abrahamic religions, references to God are used in constructs such as "God's Chosen People"...
" with a destiny to civilize the eastern Slavs. Piłsudski was an adherent of this conviction, which led him to launch his war against the Soviet Union in 1920.
The last western failure to support Poland, in Poland labeled Western betrayal
Western betrayal
Western betrayal, also called Yalta betrayal, refers to a range of critical views concerning the foreign policies of several Western countries between approximately 1919 and 1968 regarding Eastern Europe and Central Europe...
, came in 1945, at the Yalta conference
Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945, was the wartime meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D...
where the future fate of Europe was being negotiated the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
told Soviet premier Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
"Poland... has been a source of trouble for over 500 years". The western powers did not attempt to grant Poland the "victor power" status that France was given, despite the Polish military contribution.
During the communist period going to church was a sign of rebellion against the communist regime. During the time of communist martial law in 1981 it became popular to return to the messianic tradition by for example women wearing the Polish eagle on a black cross, jewelry popular after the failed uprising in 1863.
Partly due to communist influenced education (that used is as a symbol of martyrdom of anti-Nazi and anti-fascist resistance), during the Communist era Auschwitz came to take on different meanings for Jews and Poles, with Poles seeing themselves as the "principal martyrs" of the camp.
The Catholic Church, in addition to having provided the main support for the solidarity movement that replaced the communists, also has deep roots of being wedded to the Polish national identity. Polish society is currently struggling with the question of how deeply the Catholic Church shall be allowed to remain attached to Polish national identity.
Contemporary status and criticism
Several analysts see the concept as a persistent, unifying force in Poland. A poll taken at the turn of the 20th century indicated that 78% of Poles saw their country as the leading victim of injustice. Its modern applications see Poland as a nation that has "...given the world a Pope and rid the Western world of Communism."This national narrative came under increased scrutiny during the late 20th century, particularly during the controversies surrounding the Auschwitz cross
Auschwitz cross
The Auschwitz cross is a cross erected near the Auschwitz concentration camp. In 1979, the newly elected Polish Pope John Paul II said mass on the grounds of the Auschwitz II extermination camp to some 500,000 people. An 8.6 metre tall cross was erected there for the purpose, and removed after...
and the Jedwabne massacre. In 2000 Jan T. Gross
Jan T. Gross
Jan Tomasz Gross is a Polish-American historian and sociologist. He is the Norman B. Tomlinson '16 and '48 Professor of War and Society and Professor of History at Princeton University.- Biography :Jan T...
published a book
Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland
Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland is a 2001 book by Princeton University historian Jan T. Gross exploring the July 1941 Jedwabne massacre committed against Polish Jews in a village in Nazi-occupied Poland by their long-time neighbors.-Content and controversy:The...
which examined a massacre of Jews by Poles in July 1941 and argued that "collective, national martyrology" has made it difficult to acknowledge episodes of anti-Semitism in which Poles were perpetrators rather than victims. Journalist Tina Rosenberg
Tina Rosenberg
Tina Rosenberg is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author. She frequently writes for The New York Times Magazine....
believes that a "martyr nation" self-conception has dominated the Polish response to revelations about Polish treatment of the Jews in the Jedwabne massacre. She writes that in the resulting debates some have claimed that Jews were trying to slander Poland or have justified past attacks on Jews by alleging Jewish connections to the communists (see Żydokomuna
Zydokomuna
Żydokomuna is a pejorative antisemitic stereotype which came into use between World Wars I and II, blaming Jews for the rise of communism in Poland, where communism was identified as part of a wider Jewish-led conspiracy to seize power....
).
In 1990 Rev. Stanisław Musiał, deputy editor of a leading Catholic newspaper and with a close relationship to then Pope John Paul II called for a Polish reappraisal of history that would take these critiques of nationalist ideology seriously. "We have a mythology of ourselves as martyr nation", he wrote. "We are always good. The others are bad. With this national image, it was absolutely impossible that Polish people could do bad things to others."
Historical proponents
- Wojciech Dębołęcki
- Stanisław Wyspiański called Poland "the Christ of nations" due to its endurance of suffering
- Adam MickiewiczAdam MickiewiczAdam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...
, - Zygmunt KrasińskiZygmunt KrasinskiCount Napoleon Stanisław Adam Ludwig Zygmunt Krasiński , a Polish count, is traditionally ranked with Mickiewicz and Słowacki as one of Poland's Three National Bards — the trio of great Romantic poets who influenced national consciousness during the period of Poland's political bondage.-Life and...
- Andrzej TowiańskiAndrzej TowianskiAndrzej Tomasz Towiański was a Polish philosopher and Messianist religious leader.-Life:Towiański was born in Antoszwińce, a village near Wilno, which after Partitions of Poland belonged to the Russian Empire. He was the charismatic leader of the Towiańskiite sect, known also as Koło Sprawy Bożej...
See also
- Messianism in Polish philosophy
- List of Polish Martyrdom sites
- MessianismMessianismMessianism is the belief in a messiah, a savior or redeemer. Many religions have a messiah concept, including the Jewish Messiah, the Christian Christ, the Muslim Mahdi and Isa , the Buddhist Maitreya, the Hindu Kalki and the Zoroastrian Saoshyant...