Jerzy Topolski

COMMENTS ON ŁOWMIAŃSKI

The reasons why the Wielkopolska region (and, more specifically, the tribe of Polanians) played a crucial role in the emergence of the Polish state is one of the problems which Henryk Łowmiański examines in his study Początki Polski [The Origins of Poland] Łowmiański favors the concept of the state apparatus being created through a “top-down” imposition as opposed to its spontaneous development in Polish territories, i.e., by “impos[ing] the model of the state by one leading political center on individual tribes, large and small, that had still retained the traditional political system” because “only a prince capable of calling up the active forces of a major tribe stood a reasonable chance of defeating the resisting political centers of small tribes within the major tribe and then extending his control to further areas.”1 Yet the rise of state nuclei (that is the political centers which organized the state) was determined not only be the internal process of creating political power in the way described above, i.e., through subjugating the political centers of small tribes and expanding outside the territory of a given major tribe. As Łowmiański points out, it was also determined by the routes along which civilization and ideological currents were spreading. It is along those routes that the model of state institutions was transferred from one Slav territory to another, in line with the principle whereby “the tribes which were in closer contact with centers of civilization had a better chance of playing an active role in the process of institutional change than the more remote and backward tribes.”2 Great Moravia provided such a model for the East-Lechitic tribes. Nonetheless, the situation developed in such a way that the Vistulanians, who were in close proximity to Moravia, did not display

1 Łowmiański (1973), p. 438; part of this book is reprinted in this volume, pp. 175-180. 2 Ibid., p. 438.

In: K. Brzechczyn (ed.), Idealization XIII: Modeling in History (Poznań Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, vol. 97), pp. 181-184. Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi, 2009.

182 Jerzy Topolski creative initiative in organizing a state, leaving that role to the Polanians, who were more remote from Moravia than the former. According to Łowmiański, the reasons for that lied both in the policies of Great Moravia, which curbed the activities of the Vistulanians and in the policies of the Vistulanians themselves, who preferred to look for support in the south rather than in Cracow. Łowmiański examines the situation of other tribes (Ledzians, Silesians, Masovians, Pomeranians, Goplanians) in a similar way, pointing to a range of difficulties which made it impossible for these tribes to play the central role in forming the Polish state. As far as the Polanians are concerned, their situation turned out to be particularly advantageous in this respect. Firstly, they were relatively secure from the west due to the existence of West-Slavic tribes separating the Polanians from the Germanic tribes. Secondly, contacts with the Great Moravian model of political institutions came quite early (after Silesia and Małopolska were overrun by Świętopełk). Finally, the economic situation of the prince of Gniezno allowed political expansion. The point of departure for the explanatory analysis undertaken by Łowmiański is the general theory of the formation of states which he postulates. The theory which indicates indispensable conditions (collectively making up the sufficient condition) for the emergence of a state organization. The prerequisites include primarily adequate economic, social and cultural development prior to the emergence of the state. This ensures the surpluses that are indispensable to support the state apparatus and, and allows the appearance of a group of people who can exercise political power. The theory could be formulated as the following rule: whenever a given tribal society which has not been organized into a state yet reaches a sufficiently high stage of economic, social and cultural development, i.e., one that is enough to ensure (1) surpluses that are indispensable for maintaining the state apparatus and (2) the emergence of groups of people who are able to exercise power (also in terms of their cultural advancement), a state organization emerges in this area. There exist other circumstances, however, in which a state organization can appear without the above-mentioned conditions being satisfied. This may occur when some other state organization that is already well developed dominates the tribal organisms which have not yet reached “the sufficiently high stage of economic, social and cultural development.” Moreover, if one considers the creation of states under conditions in which the model of the state could be copied from states that are already in existence, the process of the emergence of a state in a given area could be accelerated in proportion to the proximity to the