A civilizing relay : the concept of the 'civilizing mission' as cultural transfer in east-central Europe, 1815-1919

Abstract

The appropriation of the concept of the civilizing mission in East-Central Europe had a compensatory character and acted as a way to challenge the division between the “civilized” West and “backwards” East, as well as to prove one’s belonging to the West. This dissertation demonstrates how the colonial concept of the civilizing mission was transferred and appropriated in East-Central Europe as both an intellectual idea and a tool for legitimizing political power. The thesis demonstrates entangled strategies of how the concept of the civilizing mission was internalized, transferred, appropriated and contested. In order to distance themselves from Eastern backwardness and identify themselves as Western, members of the German, Polish and Ukrainian intelligentsia constructed their own personal “Easts” to make themselves Western: within their Eastern neighbours (Germans saw the “East” in Poles, Poles in Ukrainians, Ukrainians and Poles in Russians) or peoples of the same ethnic origin. In other words, they became both agents and subjects of the so-called “civilizing mission.” I show how the German civilizing mission was transferred and reinterpreted as the Polish civilizing mission, how the Polish civilizing mission gave rise to the Ukrainian civilizing mission and, finally, how the Polish civilizing mission formed the Ukrainian civilizing mission aimed at Russia. Furthermore, the dissertation demonstrates the changing character of the concept of the civilizing mission. The objects of the civilizing mission were once pitied as “noble barbarians;” at another point, they threatened rebellion and were labelled “barbarian savages.” The meaning of the very term “civilizing mission” was constantly in flux. To “civilize” meant at various points to bring about statehood and enlightenment, establish capitalism and order, spread Christianity, or even to expand and colonize. Moreover, the civilizing mission evolved from the tradition of Romantic escapism to a tool of legitimizing national borders following World War I, while over the course of the 19th century, it became increasingly more exclusive and nationalistic.