Historia — polityka — eschatologia. Rosja w projekcie propagandy powstańczej Cypriana Norwida

Abstrakt

The paper presented here is a follow-up to the discussion of Cyprian Norvid’s vision of propaganda. This vision was supplemented with a scenario of propagandistic action. The scenario embraced as one of its key parts an original concept of Russia. The latter also reveals the eschatological framework in which the poet`s thought was embedded. If, as he wanted, propaganda was to serve as a vehicle of salvation, then it was Russia that was to be saved. Unlike the insurrectionist propaganda which was unstinting in its efforts to promulgate a demonic image of Russia accused of posing a threat to Order and Harmony in the world, the poet offered the image of
such a Russia that “does not know what she does.” “Does not know” as the tsarist despotism was not the embodiment of Satan’s power, but was simply born in the absence of real power, it was the lack of real power. Norvid’s eschatological vision shows that the way in which Poles thought about Russia betrayed dependence on thought structures usually met with in metaphysical speculations about evil.