Chapter 3. The Formation of the Ideology of Antisemitism in Europe 3.1. Theoretical Framework The exact chronology of the rise of modern Antisemitism as ideology and move- ment remains unfathomable. Historians mention various insufficient and debatable factors. Hostility toward Jews links not with their numbers, economic standing, or political substance, because the birthplace of modern Antisemitism saw little of Jewish population or influential. Instead, the areas with the largest and most culturally distinct Jewish communities experienced the anti-Jewish movement at a later stage in the form of a secondary phenomenon, which does not mean they held an unequivocally positive image of the Jew. Hannah Arendt in The Origin of Totalitarianism (1951) associated the rise of Antisemitism with the role played in the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries by the “Court Jews” and, later, the wealthy bankers who funded monarchs and governments. Although the fig- ures of the Rothschild’s or Baron Hirsch strongly influenced the imagination of the public and the Jews themselves, their actual influence was not significant enough to cause such a strong response in the political life of several European nations.104 Instead, the Jewish tycoons symbolized the audacious “insolence,” with which these few families exceeded their role of pariahs and entered universally accepted positions in the society. In other words, they either drawn opposition against the principle of equal opportunities or demonstrated its absence. As soon as the idea of the inevitability of Jewish emancipation spread, the names of the tycoons lost their importance, even though they did not completely disappear from Antisemitic rhetoric. Furthermore, Hannah Arendt traces the genesis of modern Antisemitism to the decline of nation states and the attack on the state by proto-imperialistic organ- izations. However, Arendt narrows her focus to the history of Germany, Austria, and France. Moreover, Arendt identifies the term “nation state” with constitutional monarchies and describes the subsequent political systems as imperialism, which does not define the states formed after the First World War precisely. In these states, Antisemitism only gained political significance the moment they formed changed into republics ruled on behalf of the majority nation. Their governments were too 104 The Rothschild family gained property as bankers of the Prussian government, then set up bank houses in Vienna, Paris, and London, becoming the precursor of international monetary policy. Maurice de Hirsch (1831–1896) was a banker from Bavaria, who conducted business in Austro-Hungary. He was interested in the situ- ation of Eastern European Jews, founded a network of vocational schools for Jewish children in Galicia, and co-financed Jewish settlements in Palestine and Argentina. Alina Caa - 9783631670828 Downloaded from PubFactory at 09/25/2021 10:27:17PM via free access 50 The Formation of the Ideology of Antisemitism in Europe weak to issue colonial demands, but nationalist groups assumed an imperialistic rhetoric aimed mostly toward national minorities. In the United Kingdom, the most imperialistic country of the nineteenth century, the Antisemitic movement was of little importance or political influence. However, Arendt rightly remarks on the contradiction between powerful constitutional monarchy in Prussia or Austria and German nationalism, which, along with other political currents, demanded democratization and sought to undermine bureaucratic structures. In my opinion, Stanisław Ossowski best expressed the problem of the relation- ship between systemic projects and the genesis of Antisemitism. Ossowski defines nationalism as a clash of two opposing aspirations: “National ideology … could be framed … as a synthesis of two contradictory tendencies: the old antinational conservative state ideology and the anti-state revolutionary national ideology with an outward energy.”105 The proponents of the former represented such con- stitutional monarchies of the nineteenth century as Austria-Hungary, Germany, or the United Kingdom, and expected the authorities to act as arbitrators in the face of conflicting class and ethnic interests. Romanticism formulated a new, rev- olutionary definition of the nation as a spiritual community. This definition stems from Hegelian philosophy, which imbued it with idealistic and mystical musings on the “spirit of the nation.” Its enthusiasts fought for the people’s emancipa- tion, who they understood as a community not necessarily ethnically homog- enous. Although these proponents rarely included national minorities in their project, many Romantics in Germany, Austria, and even Poland advocated for the (legal or merely societal) emancipation of the Jews, still perceived mostly as a socio-religious rather than a national group. The People’s Spring realized these postulates, although its achievements proved fragile. Simultaneously, how- ever, democrats of the Romantic era elevated the wellbeing of the idealized nation above all other state interests. This led to two opposing ideas of a nation as a civic society (as devised in the Revolutionary France) or a nationalist community mod- elled after aristocratic elitism.106 Let us distinguish here between the terms “nationalism” and “chauvinism.” Both utilized a similar ideology, but offered different solutions to organize the state. The former struggled to secure the superiority of the ethnic group in power. In Europe, it generally meant the dominant nationality in the population. Globally, however, it the power happened to lie with one of the coequal nations or even with a minority. The ruling ethnic group gained the advantage of this sort by the higher material and social standing, strengthened and maintained by easier access to the privileges of elite membership: state positions, better education, and economic sit- uation. The ruling group resolved possible ethnic tensions in two ways: either by seeking to denationalize the subordinate groups (e.g., by forced assimilation or the reinforcement of acculturation and integration processes) or by allowing a degree 105 S. Ossowski (1966), Dzieła, Vol. 3, p. 244. 106 See B. Porter (2000), When Nationalism Began to Hate, New York-Oxford. Alina Caa - 9783631670828 Downloaded from PubFactory at 09/25/2021 10:27:17PM via free access The Revaluation of Judeophobia 51 of autonomy. The former solution introduced Prussia (assimilation) and France (integration), the latter by Austria (albeit not Hungary) and the English colonies in Asia. Chauvinism was a slightly different systemic project. Chauvinists applied the theories of evolutionism and social Darwinism to all external and internal conflicts, ethnic included. They considered legal and custom-based discrimination as well as any class differences to be a natural state of affairs and the result of a linear evolutionary process, in which better forms supersede the lesser. Wielding slogans of solidarism, chauvinists eagerly adopted a mysticism of blood bonds as the nation’s foundation and narrowed the Romantic definitions of the “spiri- tual” nation to a biological, tribal affinity. According to this concept, the state is to be a guardian rather than an arbiter, with strong authority and subordinate citi- zens. Chauvinists never emphasized the integration of national minorities, largely ignoring their particular interests, and resolved conflicts by force. Supporters of conservatism, nationalism, and chauvinism opposed the emancipation of the Jews, but the latter two motivated no yearning for a return to the feudal past (as did the conservatives), but rather stemmed from the idea of the nation and its role in the state. Antisemitism became the sole link between these contradictory systemic projects and enabled their cooperation. It seems that this was the reason for the close interconnection of the “Jew-biters” and the late-nineteenth-century right, even though there was no shortage of similar attitudes in the early socialism. For Ossowski, chauvinism seems virtually identical to right-wing and left- wing totalitarianism, befitting both the Third Reich and Stalinist Russia. Arendt, instead, sees totalitarianism as a separate institutional entity. As the main differ- ence Arendt stresses the role of terror, which served not only to eliminate and intimidate opponents, as was the case in all ancient and modern tyrannies, but as a tool to reign over perfectly obedient masses.107 Anyone could fall victim to repression at any time, their innocence understood as the subject of persecution regardless of deeds. What totalitarianism shared with imperialism was a desire for conquest, not only through colonial exploitation but, above all, ideological transfer. That is why totalitarianism sought to establish international structures, “pan-movements,” as Arendt puts it. While chauvinism was able to function within a parliamentary system, even if it wanted its limitation, totalitarianism abandoned the idea of democratic and civil institutions wholly, at most allowing their exis- tence in a mock-up form. 3.2. The Revaluation of Judeophobia: Seventeenth to Nineteenth Century The structural aspects of the Jewish image, formed in the late Middle Ages, remained mostly unchanged, although perception of Judaism’s nature and the 107 H. Arendt, (1951), p. 44. Alina Caa - 9783631670828 Downloaded from PubFactory at 09/25/2021 10:27:17PM via free access 52 The Formation of the Ideology of Antisemitism in Europe role of its followers in society changed