Polska Zachodnia w poglądach politycznych i publicystyce Józefa Ignacego Kraszewskiego z lat 1858-1872

This article concerns the evolution of the worldview of a famous Polish author Józef Ignacy Kraszewski (1812-1887) concerning the legal state of lands controlled by the Prussian state (Germany since 1871), the eastern territories, which the writer considered to be Polish. This analysis concerns the 1858-1872 period, that is since his first journey west, when he spent time in Wrocław and Silesia, until 1872, when his brochure, The Polish Programme 1872. Thoughts about the national task (Program Polski 1872. Myśli o zadaniu narodowym) saw print, which was his informal political testament and a culmination of his political journalism concerning Western Poland. In the following years, until his death, he focused on writing novels, with mainly anti-German themes. The subject of detailed analysis are Kraszewski’s voluminous Balances (Rachunki), published annually in the years 1866-1869, in which he meticulously jotted down and commented upon the development of the Polish nation in the areas conquered by Prussia during the three partitions, in the years 1772-1795 (Greater Poland, Pomerania and Warmia), as well as Silesia and Masuria, which were not conquered, seeing as they were not part of Poland before 1772. In Balances from 1869, he called all these lands, for the first time, by the common name of the Prussian partition, this was to indicate their similar socio-political situation and the national link between all Polish lands under Prussian rule, regardless of their legal status. To the author this was Western Poland, which the Poles should incorporate into the free Polish state in order to achieve a historic restoration of ancient lands by the Oder river and the Baltic Sea.