Mechanisms of Conceptual Change in the Discourse of Polish Political Emigration after the November Insurrection of 1830–1

Abstract

This essay investigates the mechanisms of conceptual change in the discourse of Polish political emigration after the November Insurrection of 1830–1. To this end, a methodological apparatus is employed that has been elaborated by scholars of the German ‘history of concepts’ ( Begriffsgeschichte ) school and by Anglo-Saxon researchers specialised in the intellectual history and studies on ideology. Quoting a series of period source materials, I argue that the decades of 1830s and 1840s are interpretable in the Polish context as the time of a fundamental breakthrough in the sphere of ideas and political concepts. This turn was caused, for one thing, by the absorbability of Polish political discourse of the time, with a number of new ideas and concepts appearing, particularly those borrowed from the French debates ongoing in the period concerned. For another, it resulted from ardent disputes going on in the circles of the Polish Great Emigration. The concluding remarks stress the need to render a method applicable with such considerations empirically rooted since the dynamism of conceptual change is fundamentally different depending on the period as well as national and linguistic context.