Non-Germanic Central Europe: key to European stability or periphery of empires?

A few years ago, I had an opportunity to read the first English translation of treatises by a Polish Catholic bishop and lawyer Pawel Włodkowic (1370-1435).  The treatises were written in Latin and had never before been translated into Polish or English. Among others, they contain Włodkowic’s speeches at the Council of Constance (1414-1418), in which he participated as a member of the Polish delegation. Włodkowic argued that, based on natural law, nations have the right to exist in peace even if they are not Christian. Conversion by force should not be practiced or encouraged. He argued for recognition of the rights of nations and for institution of international law that would oblige European powers to stay within the borders of their states and abstain from starting wars with their neighbors to enlarge their territory, under the pretext of converting them to Christianity.

This proposal went against the interests of the Order of Brethren of the German House of Saint Mary (otherwise known as the Teutonic Knights). The Knights moved to Europe after their role in the Holy Land had ended. Their raids into territories occupied by the Baltic tribes became infamous in non-Germanic Central Europe. The Knights justified them by claiming that the ignoble savages urgently needed a disciplining hand which the Knights provided. The issue would have rested there, so far as the Council of Constance was concerned (the Baltic tribes had no spokespersons at the Council), were it not for Włodkowic.  He came to Constance with detailed knowledge of the hundreds of cases in which the Knights were accused of robbery of Baltic property, destruction of the already existing churches, theft of liturgical vessels (which the Brethren later sold in Western Europe), and illegal annexations of land. In his speeches to the Council Włodkowic argued that the Knights raided territories that had already been christianized by Lithuanian- and Polish-sponsored clergy, and that they presented to the Pope a mendacious account of their doings. To remedy the situation, Włodkowic proposed dissolution of the Teutonic Order. In his view, the Order was heretical. Włodkowic introduced the term heresia Prussiana to describe the Order’s doings. He stated that the Teutonic Knights destroyed over a hundred churches in Lithuanian and Polish territory; he also mentioned public executions of those who resisted the Knights.  These were robbers pure and simple, argued Włodkowic, and perpetrators of these atrocities should be punished. Indeed, an Order that engaged in such doings should be dissolved (1).

 /// The misdeeds and crimes of the Knights and their long-term consequences played no role in shaping the remembered history of Europe. ///

 Johannes Urbach de Bamberg and Johannes Falkenberg were the two Germans who responded to Włodkowic’s accusations.  Urbach maintained that pagans have no rights. Falkenberg accused Włodkowic of heresy and proposed genocide of the entire Polish tribe including its Lithuanian king Jagiello (Iogaila). Falkenberg’s proposal was rejected, and some of the lands seized by the Order were returned to the Polish princes; however, Włodkowic did not win the debate. His proposal to formulate an outline of international law was passed over and to this day, Bartholomé de las Casas (1484-1566) is considered to be the first proclaimer of the right of nations to exist without being subjected to military conquest.

 Włodkowic proposed that the Council proclaim the existence of international law (stemming from natural law) to which all Christian countries would adhere. This law would oblige nations and tribes to abstain from attacking their neighbors if the neighbors were peaceful. The Council listened but did nothing.

 I submit that at least partially, the Council’s inaction was caused by ethnic animosities. The rise of European nationalisms is traceable not to the French Revolution but to the cultural sense of cohesion and loyalty developed in the Middle Ages (2). Ethnicity played an unacknowledged role at the Council. The participants deemed other issues to be of greater importance than the complaint of an obscure representative of a national group that was several times smaller than the German delegation, indeed it was counted as part of the German delegation. Their judgment was at least partly based on ethnic solidarity. Years later, Włodkowic wrote about his failure in a letter to a fellow cleric. He sadly admitted that he was just an aging priest who did not prevail against the interest group that was unjustly praised at the Council.

 The Teutonic order survived while maintaining a generally positive self-image. The pagan Prussian raids into Polish and Lithuanian territory, and Cuman raids into Hungary are remembered, while the lawless raids of the Knights into both christianized and pagan territory have been forgotten. The misdeeds and crimes of the Knights and their long-term consequences played no role in shaping the remembered history of Europe. In 1900, Polish writer (and Nobel Prize winner) Henryk Sienkiewicz published a novel about the Knights that resonates with Włodkowic’s account. English translation appeared in the same year. The novel was translated into German in 1901. It met with dead silence. Sienkiewicz’s novel went against the established truths.  In the early twentieth century German power was credited with maintaining peace on the continent, and a proposal to question it, however unrelated to contemporary political realities, was not what those in power wanted. In 1901, the nations of non-Germanic Central Europe were a little more than colonies of European empires. While in the Middle Ages Europe was divided into nation states, nineteenth-century Europe was divided into empires: Russian, Prussian, Ottoman, and Austrian. It was a classical case of white-on-white colonialism, although empires shielded away from such terminology, preferring instead to reserve it for overseas colonies. They were amazingly successful in avoiding the terminology of colonialism: the expression “white-on-white colonialism” came to life only in the twenty-first century.  I submit that the elimination of non-Germanic European voices from the image of Europe weakened European civilization and contributed mightily to the troubles it has experienced in the twenty-first century.

 /// What would have happened if the Council of Constance pursued the road suggested by Włodkowic?  The centuries-long German Drang nach Osten probably would have been weakened or not taken place at all. ///

Virtually all conservative thinkers in Europe lament World War 1 and the destruction of the continental empires that followed. The wondrous return to the Europe of many nations does not seem to weigh in much in academic assessment of the Peace of Versailles.  Woodrow Wilson is often blamed for consenting to it, indeed promoting it. As if the well-being of smaller nations did not count at all. It. is a generally accepted view that the Versailles Treaty rather than the Teutonic drive for importance and territorial enlargement is responsible for World War 2.

 What would have happened if the Council of Constance pursued the road suggested by Włodkowic?  The centuries-long German Drang nach Osten probably would have been weakened or not taken place at all. Catholic Poland would have been strengthened and Catholic influence spread throughout Central and Eastern Europe. The intellectual and political division of Europe into Western and Eastern might not have developed. Differences in material wealth between West and East would have abated. Never mind pipe dreams: I would like to submit however that the doings of the Teutonic Knights in non-Germanic Central Europe initiated the process of shutting out and excluding non-Germanic Central Europe from mainstream Western culture. After the Napoleonic wars, the “discovery” of Russia and its culture further contributed to this practice. Territories that separated Russia from the West shrank in importance and visibility. Their intellectual achievements were not incorporated into the Western mainstream, while their military resistance to conquest from the East and South was not recognized as crucial to preservation of Western culture.  Interpretation of European history became faulty at the very foundation, never to be corrected. The nations of non-Germanic Central Europe drained their energies on liberating themselves from the colonial yoke rather than on building up their image vis-à-vis their Western neighbors. As is common in colonized societies, a habit of looking up to “the West” was born as if “the West” consisted of more valuable population, better art, and finer history than the colonized lands. This inferiority complex still persists among Central Europe’s poorer classes. Humanistic scholarship developed at Western universities ignored scholarship and literature created by subjugated nations. To this day, most “Western European” professors of humanities would find it difficult to find stored in their memory at least one paragraph written by a non-Germanic Central European writer.

 Western conservatives are much to blame in this respect. In the nineteenth century in particular, they allowed non-Germanic Central Europe to slip away from the area designated as “Europe,” even though this part of Europe had more in common with their own proclaimed beliefs (Christianity and tradition) than post-revolutionary France, colonial Great Britain, or land-greedy Germany. Western conservatives have sided up with the empires (many still do). They have routinely lamented the weakening of empires after World War 1 and the creation of independent states in territories where these independent states existed in the premodern era. These laments amount to empire worship. They contribute to the decline of the West. The West shrank by its own volition. Not just geographically, but also intellectually, because the notion of “Europe” was diminished. A large part of Western civilization was consigned to invisibility and thwarted growth under the rule of ethnically hostile governments.

/// The non-Germanic nations of Central Europe did not disappear entirely, despite costly efforts to erase them. In most cases, de-nationalization failed. ///

Can such distortions as those illustrated by the newly discovered medieval text be corrected? Not instantly; however, one should become aware that the history of Europe contains such deformities.

 The non-Germanic nations of Central Europe did not disappear entirely, despite costly efforts to erase them. In most cases, de-nationalization failed. Still, they spent a disproportionate share of their creative energy preserving their identity rather than building modern communities and developing industries, banking, insurance systems, and other foundations of modern prosperity. Their citizens wrote poetry instead of building societies, because poetry was one of the few available means of preserving communal identity. Their goal was biological and cultural survival, not global competition. These colonized nations could not follow the path of development enjoyed by the occupying powers. Their contribution to Western thought was ignored. Who in Western Europe knows and admires Feliks Koneczny? Yet Koneczny’s theorizing about civilizations preceded Huntington’s and might have helped avoid policy mistakes in post-World War 2 Europe.