The Polish questions in British politics and beyond, 1830-1847

Abstract

The problem of the Polish Question, usually understood as the issue of Polish exiles’ efforts to restore Poland to its previous glory and independence, remains overshadowed by much more visible topic of the Great Emigration that followed the fall of the November Uprising (1830-31). At the same time the problem of Poland, despite its continuous presence in British political and social life of the 1830s and 1840s, has so far remained outside the interest of historians of nineteenth-century British political and social history.

This thesis sets out to, on the one hand, broaden the study of the Great Emigration and Polish nineteenth-century history and, on the other, to introduce the subject of Poland, Polish independence and Polish refugees to British historiography. Central in the analysis presented below is the idea of the Polish Question, or, as will be argued, two Polish Questions: one associated with the problem of Polish independence, promoted at various times and with various intensity throughout the 1830s and 1840s; the other linked with the issue of Polish refugees in Britain.

The central problem analysed in this work is the impact of the two Polish Questions on British foreign politics and parliamentary debates, as well as the broader question of public interest, contemporary press and public opinion. By presenting developments of both questions in the context of contemporary British domestic and foreign politics, as well as social and economic changes of the period, this thesis shows the dynamics of the Polish Questions in Britain between the outbreak of the November Uprising and the beginning of the Springtime of Nations.

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