Wpływ wojen napoleońskich na wzrost niechęci wobec biurokracji w polskiej myśli administracyjnej w latach 1813–1815
Influence of the Napoleonic Wars on the rise of resentfulness towards bureaucracy in Polish administrative thought in 1813–1815

Summary/Abstract: The author of the article focused on the issue of reorientation in views about administration, which occurred in the Polish political thought over a mere few years of existence of the Duchy of Warsaw, especially at the last stage of its existence in 1813–1815. This state entity created by Napoleon came into being on the wave of enthusiasm and faith in the national rebirth of Poles and in the Enlightenment belief about the agency of the government, capable of lifting the country from collapse and of setting it on a path of civilizational progress. Soon, however, it turned out that at the same time it became a state whose short-lived existence of only a few years would be marked by constant wars and a declining economic situation, negatively affecting the society’s assessments of the state structures, as well as kindling a yearning for the old political traditions. Extensively quoted statements of both a landowner from the Lublin region, Joachim Owidzki (a person widely known and respected in this region) as well as the former Jacobin Józef Kalasanty Szaniawski (an expressive representative of Polish intellectual and political elites) documented the change in the attitude to the bureaucracy; whereas the text of the School of Law professor Franciszek Ksawery Szaniawski could serve as a summary of this change. He noted that the total criticism of the “clerical state” resulted from a tendency to exaggeration.

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