The Pathogenesis of the Public Sphere in Exile: Anarchy and Unity in the Political Thought and Mentality of the Great Polish Emigration

The post-1831 Great Emigration created conditions that were particularly favourable for the development of Polish political thought. This development, however, would have progressed at a considerably slower tempo without the deepening of ideopolitical differences, which put paid to any belief that the émigrés would reach unity. Paradoxically, successive rifts were often justified exactly by the aspiration to implement the concept of ‘unity’. The present article focuses on an issue-based analysis of the tensions between the categories of ‘unity’ and ‘anarchy’, and discusses the mechanism which led to the emergence of the public sphere in exile.