18
PAR.TISAN REVIEW
ernized state with its big industrial centers.
Some elements of messianism seem to be present in contemporary
national aspirations, though they are perhaps modified and less drastic
than in the past. In the nineteenth century Russian messianism was fed by
opposition to the "decadent," horrible Western Europe, and in this re–
spect we may see again several rebirths. In Poland it thrived on the
opposition of the Catholic, chivalrous country, faithful to the principles
of honor, to a barbaric Russian autocracy. Today we can distinguish
certain lines of continuation especially as the powerful Church in Poland
distinguishes it from its atheistic neighbor to the east. It is not certain
whether the idea of Central Europe, invented by a few intellectuals, has
not slightly messianic connotations as it opposes "the greatest possible
diversity on the smallest territory" to the Russian monolith. On the
other hand, it opposes a kind of intellectual intensity, a seriousness and
vigor in the arts, to the Western European slackness and sterility. Here I
can quote from my preface to my book
The El'uperor of the Earth,
and by
doing this I engage in an exercise of self-irony: "Weare now like the
Dalmatians in the collapsing Roman Empire. They cared when the oth–
ers wouldn't give a damn." This is how a friend of mine from Poland
spoke of the difference between the so-called Eastern and Western Euro–
peans. He might have added that although we have been attracted to the
great Western centers of learning and art for generations, our admiration
has never been without reservation. Yet it is true that something new has
taken place in the last decades. Changed into outsiders by the political
division of Europe, we began to see more clearly than before that which
Western man, submerged by everyday life, has been reluctant to admit,
and the spectacle before our eyes didn't seem very promising. In defense
of the feeling of a sad superiority expressed in this fragment - and because
it draws its strength from misfortune and political slavery - what can be
invoked? Probably no more than the fact that the idea of our part of
Europe as a separate entity is not limited to that of one nation but
embraces several nations united by a common fate and perhaps maturing
to friendly neighbor relations, which in the past was not their strong
point.
People who haven't lived through the first decade after World War
Two have difficulty visualizing the triumphal elan of the Marxist creed
then attracting the best minds in both parts of divided Europe. That era
is receding into oblivion so fast that the question is being asked as to
why so many intellectuals fell victim to self-imposed blindness at that
time, while the more sensible question would be as to why some
opposed that lure and for what reasons . Thinking of human emotional
needs, we should also recognize the enormous pull of claims laid on the
individual by the nation to which he or she belongs. I realized this when
