Pour une (re)définition du messianisme polonais. Le cas d’Andrzej Towiański

Andrzej Towiański (1799-1878) was a Polish Romantic thinker who critics tend to associate with the movement known as ‘Polish Messianism'. The latter was entirely submitted to the ideas related to the leading Polish Romantic poet, Adam Mickiewicz, a key figure of this movement. Nevertheless, a closer look at Towiański's theses shows that it was the ethics underlying his theses to which the national level was entirely submitted. Furthermore, if we accept the notion put forward by those who study religious sociology, according to which the term 'messianism' stands for the presence (or the return) of a divine character, then the term is inappropriate here. In its wish to continue Christ's work, Towianism lends itself more readily to Augustinian a-millennialism; what is more, considering the fact that 'collective individuals' are the first who are called upon to show the path to salvation, it may be deemed 'humanitarianism'. In reality, the term 'Polish messianism' only serves to highlight the limits of the terms used in Polish studies to categorise the parareligious phenomena which put Poland on the world's stage.