Rising Subjects explores the change of the public sphere in Russian
Poland during the 1905 Revolution. The 1905 Revolution was one of the
few bottom-up political transformations and general democratizations in
Polish history. It was a popular rebellion fostering political
participation of the working class. The infringement of previously
carefully guarded limits of the public sphere triggered a powerful
conservative reaction among the commercial and landed elites, and
frightened the intelligentsia. Polish nationalists promised to eliminate
the revolutionary "anarchy" and gave meaning to the sense of
disappointment after the revolution.
This study considers the 1905 Revolution as a tipping point for the
ongoing developments of the public sphere. It addresses the question of
Polish socialism, nationalism, and antisemitism. It demonstrates the
difficulties in using the class cleavage for democratic politics in a
conflict-ridden, multiethnic polity striving for an irredentist
self-assertion against the imperial power.