Essay from the yr 2013 within the topic Politics - overseas Politics - area: jap Europe, grade: nine, Maastricht collage, language: English, summary: "Saisonstaat” (seasonal kingdom) - this was once the pejorative identify Prussian historians labelled Poland with within the 18th century (Davies, 2005, pp. 24, 324). They did so within the face of the walls of Poland, which ended in Poland thoroughly vanishing off the map (Davies, 2005, p. 386).
But why used to be Poland visible basically as an tool for Prussia and Russia in striving for hegemony? (Biskupski, 2000, p. 22) this query is hard to reply to and already provides a touch to the complexity of the method of nation- and nation-building in Poland, which deviates in lots of facets from the Western eu nations.
To supply a origin for the ideas that this paper is predicated on, one must outline the phrases of either kingdom and country. in response to Smith, a state is greater than in basic terms an ethnic staff yet a cultural- political neighborhood, residing in a space of payment and sharing a standard history, tradition and legislations (Smith, 1995, p. 57). the idea that of a kingdom utilized derives from Roberts. To him, a nation is characterised through “the presence of very best authority, ruling over an outlined territory, who's famous as having strength to make judgements in issues of presidency […]” (Roberts, 1979, p. 32).
Taking those definitions into account, this paper is split into 4 sections, pertaining to all the assorted levels within the nation- and nation-building procedure to at least one season of the yr. This paper to start with examines the industrial “spring” of Poland, the Piast dynasty, thereafter recognition is laid at the Jagiellonian interval, Poland’s “summer”, that's associated with the private union of Poland and Lithuania. within the subsequent part I study the “fall” of the Poland, that's characterised through the consolidation of the Nobility’s supremacy and the industrial decay of the rustic. this is often best as much as the final component to this paper, in addition to the walls which killed the Polish kingdom, but the kingdom was once turning into extra alive than ever.
My goal is to teach that the country- and nation-building means of Poland used to be no longer destined to turn into “a state just for a season” as claimed through Prussian historians, even though following a different approach, a country country could have been winning via the start of the nineteenth century if it had now not felt sufferer to the desire of territorial growth by means of its neighboring empires (Weinberg, 1996, web page. 42).
To that finish, a number of strains of a poem named “Sezony” (seasons) written by way of an nameless Polish Poet shape the frame.