Realizm polityczny i imponderabilia. Józef Piłsudski i jego pojmowanie polskiej racji stanu na arenie międzynarodowej

Abstract

The author tries to reconsider Marshal Piłsudski’s main ideas of Polish foreign policy after the regaining of the independence (1918) and especially in the last nine years of his life and dictatorship in Poland (1926-1935). During the Polish-Soviet war (1919-1920) he unsuccessfully promoted the “federalist solution” for Lithuanians, Belarussians, Ukrainians as the “successor nations” of the ancient Jagiellonian Commonwealth. After the coup d’etat in May 1926 Piłsudski’s foreign policy was the “balance” strategy between two hostile Great Powers: Germany and Soviet Russia. Under his guidance Poland wanted to remain disengaged in terms of co-operation with either Berlin or Moscow. Piłsudski’s strategy was a mixture of Realpolitik and idealism. It is true that his conceptions cannot be understood in categories of the schematic opposition between his political romanticism and fidelity to the imponderabilia from the one side and the philosophy of Realpolitik from the other side.