156 Avant-Garde in the State – Avant-Garde for the State. The Second Republic of Poland 1918–1939 Iwona Luba University of Warsaw Institute of Art History
[email protected] The paper analyses the phenomenon of the avant-garde’s involve- ment in the development and modernisation of the state, the state’s repre- sentation in art, and the use of art for educational purposes. It presents the complex attitude towards the avant-garde circles taken by the government of the Second Republic of Poland. Keywords: avant-garde, government, modern state, national art, representation of the state in arts, visual propaganda, the Second Republic of Poland. 157 Difficult beginnings On 11 November 1918, Poland proclaimed independence. After 123 years of partitions, Poland as a state returned to the map of Europe. The territorial borders of Poland were finally approved on 15 March 1923, on the basis of the additional protocol of the Treaty of Versailles. The new borders encircled a much smaller area than that of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest states of modern Europe partitioned among three great empires: Austria, Prussia and Russia from 1772 to 1795.1 Poland had to develop a new model of statehood, and the govern- ment had to work out methods and tools to unite Poles who had previously lived under three different legal and cultural systems. Art and culture were to play an important role in this “state-formation” process. In the 19th cen- tury, the element uniting Poles from three different partitions was mainly the language, and the national function was fulfilled by literature, mainly Romantic.