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Mateusz Drozdowski
History Notebooks, Issue 144 (2), 2017, pp. 233-253
https://doi.org/10.4467/20844069PH.17.013.6256The aim of the article is to analyze the national identity of the Polish politicians active in a self-governing Galicia who were supporters of the so-called Austro-Polish solution. This political idea was based on a plan to reconstruct Polish sovereignty in cooperation with the Habsburg monarchy. The majority of followers of the Austro-Polish solution were members of one political party: the Cracow conservatives. After the outbreak of World War I the idea was promoted by the Supreme National Committee, an organization that was created as a political and logistic background of the Polish Legions, the semi-independent Polish troops that fought as a part of the Austro-Hungarian military.
The research is primarily focused on the question whether it is possible to describe the identity of these politicians as Polish or Austrian, or was it a kind of combination of the two? The paper analyzes the attitude of Władysław Leopold Jaworski, Leon Biliński and Michał Bobrzyński, three politicians who, between 1914 and 1918, played a crucial role in all attempts to realize and promote the Austro-Polish idea. Their dilemmas were precisely examined on the basis of memoires, speeches and historical studies as well as the archives. The author claims that the attitude of the three politicians towards the Austro-Hungarian Empire undoubtedly contained an emotional component. It means that describing these politicians as Austro-Polish patriots seems to be absolutely justified.