France vs. Poland: Modern History of Nation-Building Contrasts

Introduction: Two Paths Through the Modern Era

Few countries in Europe have such widely differing modern histories as France and Poland. Both began the modern era as ancient Catholic monarchies. Each nation covered a large expanse of territory and could claim, at least in theory, to be a significant power within its own region. There, however, the comparison stops. France was a relatively well-organized and fairly coherent state under the rule of a powerful king and a centralizing absolute monarchy. Poland, on the other hand, was a holdover from the medieval past — an elective monarchy dominated by an overweening and exceedingly numerous aristocracy. While France was destined to enter the nineteenth century as a powerful empire and to become more highly centralized than ever before, Poland would, at almost the very same time, completely disappear from the map. Absorbed into Russia, Germany, and Austria, the Polish people would be condemned to a long continuation of the Middle Ages and to an equally long fight for freedom and for membership in the modern world.

France: Revolution, Centralization, and Secular Modernity

The France that emerged in the wake of the devastating revolution of the late eighteenth century was a country purged of virtually the last vestiges of the medieval past. Though true democracy lay well in the future in 1800, France had shed the old feudal structures. Noble privileges had been abolished. The traditional union of church and state had been broken, and all French men had won equal rights. The numerous, semi-autonomous provinces of the Ancien Régime had been abolished and replaced by well-organized, identically administered departments. The welter of feudal and provincial laws and customs, the special rights and privileges of the different estates, and the bewildering array of jurisdictions and systems of law and taxation now all fell under the umbrella of the national government in Paris. Within a few years, the famous Code Napoléon gave France a single, coherent legal system that endures to this day.

French unity was enhanced in many other ways as well. The French language and culture were supreme throughout the land and were fully imposed on all contiguous French territory. When Napoleon III annexed Nice in 1860, the formerly Italian city acquired its French name and in every way became an integral part of the French nation. The dialectal differences long present in southern France — not to mention the entirely different language still spoken in parts of Brittany — were replaced, in all public spheres, by French. A single national educational system was created, one of the most highly centralized in the world, with French as the sole language of instruction. The state gained precedence over local, regional, ethnic, and religious ties.

Language, Education, and French National Unity

Though still a predominantly Catholic nation, the France that evolved during the course of the nineteenth century was no longer inextricably linked with the Church. Once the last of the monarchies and empires had disappeared with the end of the Franco-Prussian War, France became one of the world's first truly secular states. This secularism did much to modernize, educate, and unify the country:

Higher education was placed under the care of the state. Between 1881 and 1886, under the leadership of Minister of Education Jules Ferry, a series of laws was passed to establish a universal, secular system of primary education for children between 6 and 13 years of age. These Ferry laws intended to ensure the Republic's survival by creating a nation of literate and secular citizens. In 1865 approximately a quarter of the people residing in France could not speak French, and in 1870 thirty percent of men entering the army were illiterate; by 1906 only five percent of military conscripts were illiterate, and 97.1 percent of men and 94.8 percent of women could sign their marriage contracts. (Haine, 2000, p. 123)

Conclusion: Religion, Modernity, and National Character

Thus, in Poland it was the Church, and the ancient faith of the Poles, that served as the core of national identity and provided the glue that bound together elements of Polish resistance against oppression. In the Polish case, this oppression was largely foreign, and it was these foreign oppressors who, for so long, retarded Polish development, modernization, and national growth. In contrast, it was the French rejection of what it saw as the medieval system of Church and State that led to the welding together of the French people into a single, indivisible entity, and allowed for the rapid modernization and industrialization of the country. As historian Norman Davies has documented, these divergent historical experiences left deep imprints on both national cultures. These two forces continue to mold France and Poland today, with the French still debating the place of religion in a new Europe, and the Poles continuing to emphasize faith's importance in their society.