Andrzej Towia\u0144ski (1799-1878) remains a neglected research topic despite being a central figure in Polish Messianism: the nineteenth-century cultural movement advocating the recognition of Polish nationality and the restoration of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Towia\u0144ski led the Cause of God, a non-institutionalised religious movement promoting a social renewal based on Christian virtues. Existing scholarship focused on Adam Mickiewicz (1798\u20131855), Poland\u2019s national poet and Towia\u0144ski\u2019s disciple, neglecting broader research on the movement. Using a historical-critical methodology based on unpublished archival sources and a micro-historical approach to the study of social groups, the project analyses: 1) Towia\u0144ski\u2019s political thought, which anticipated contemporary issues such as self-determination of people, pacifism, freedom of confession, women\u2019s emancipation, and animal rights; 2) the diffusion of Towianism from Lithuania to Central-Eastern Europe and Western Europe; 3) the tensions between the Towianists, nationalist movements, and the Roman Catholic Church; 4) The relevance of Towia\u0144ski\u2019s ideas in contemporary Poland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By examining this under-researched movement, this project challenges nineteenth-century dominant narratives, broadening understanding of the actors involved in the processes of European national independence and highlighting the contribution of Polish-Lithuanian non-hegemonic political-religious ideas to European social and intellectual history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-7088","project","type-project","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n