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Polish language and nation: a rather recent pairing

Standing fast by Poland’s national “master narrative”, the country’s schools teach that the Polish nation, defined as all the speakers of the Polish language, is a millennium old. Yet, this pairing of the Polish nation and language dates back only to the late 19th century.

In Polish popular opinion, the view that the Polish nation consists of all the speakers of the Polish language is not controversial. Hence, the Polish speech community is unreflectively equated with the Polish nation. In turn, all the territories where speakers of Polish reside compactly are deemed to rightfully constitute the Polish nation-state. 

February 28, 2025 - Tomasz Kamusella - Hot TopicsIssue 1-2 2025Magazine

Illustration by Andrzej Zaręba

This now widely accepted definition of the Polish nation is a realization of the goal of ethnolinguistic nationalism. In a nutshell, this ideology can be presented with the following algebraic equation: Language = Nation = Nation-State. After the First World War, ethnolinguistic nationalism became the predominant ideology of creating, legitimizing and maintaining statehood across Central Europe (and in Eastern Europe after the breakup of the Soviet Union). The Allies granted this ideology to the region at the peace conference in Paris. In this process, the Allies’ negotiating teams drew on Leon Dominian’s 1917 study Boundaries of Language and Nationality in Europe that was recommended by US President Woodrow Wilson. 

National history 

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