Proposals to solve to the issue of national minorities by means of providing these groups with differently understood autonomy began to emerge in the second half of the 19th century. These concepts owed their popularity to the nation‐building processes which were at their most dynamic at the time, the shaping of nation states as well as the increase in the aspirations of dependent nations of the Eastern and Central Europe. The article presents different concepts of national autonomy both in the context of Poland and of Europe, and comments on controversies regarding the definition of national minorities formulated in the context of Poland’s constitutionalism, as well as the vision of national autonomy shaped in the framework of political thought at the turn of 19th and 20th centuries and the interwar period in Poland.
In conclusion the Author claims that national autonomy, as a concept of solving the issue of national minorities, proved to be a highly unrealistic project, which never became more than a subject of debate. The Author does not conduct a comparative analysis of earlier visions of national autonomy with contemporary ones. One may, however, presume that the notion as formulated in the 19th and 20th century and in the interwar period was mainly aimed at protecting national minorities, while the contemporary understanding sees the autonomy of national minorities as a preliminary stage for establishing their own independent state.