Philip Earl Steele Homo Religiosus
Philip Earl Steele Homo religiosus : the phenomenon of Poland’s Mieszko I The full significance of Mieszko I’s decision to adopt Christianity in 966 has generally evaded Polish historiography. This is understandable regarding recent generations of Polish scholars, as the dogmas imposed during the country’s communist period had the effect of preserving the rationalist skepticism which Jacob Burckhardt, for instance, had applied in the mid-19 th c. toward understanding the conversion of Constantine the Great 1. That reductionist approach, often labeled “scientism” in Poland, dismisses the etiological power of religious beliefs and motives in history’s dynamics – and it was by and large rejected in Western scholarship roughly a century ago. 2 Yet as the medieval historian Richard Fletcher observed already a decade into the post-Cold War era, “This line of argument has held some appeal for historians of a Marxist inclination, of whom a few may still be encountered in remote places” 3. Polish historians might chuckle upon reading that – or cringe, as the case may be. For the shoe certainly fits. The structural realities of the Soviet bloc of course compounded this problem, inasmuch as they fostered the virtual autarky of national scholarly communities. Thus, until the demise of communism, Polish historians were importantly cut off from the community of Western scholars. Their ensuing lack of skill with Western languages only deepened the 1 J. Burckhardt, Die Zeit Constantins des Grossen, Basel 1853. 2 Cf. C. Odahl, Constantine and the Christian Empire, London, New York 2013, p. 285-286. 3 Richard Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity , University of California Press, 1999, p.
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