Some Remarks about the Idea of 'A Second Japan' in 20th Century Polish Political Thought

The article discusses several examples of Japan's presence in the Polish discourses on modernization in the first decades of the twentieth century. Significant figures from across the Polish political and cultural spectrum referred to Japan as a model of successful modernization. Several Polish leaders (such as Jozef Pilsudski and Roman Dmowski) travelled to Japan during the Russo-Japanese war in 1904 and sought support for their rival visions of Poland's future. Four prime ministers of the re-created Polish state after 1918 had been trained by Japanese operatives at a secret intelligence training centre in Switzerland. Several other important Polish political, cultural and religious figures travelled and lived in Japan in the first half of the twentieth century - each of them became impressed by different aspects of Japanese culture and society. Notable examples of Poles profoundly influenced by Japanese culture include journalists and writers (such as Waclaw Sieroszewski and Aleksander Janta-Polczynski), a former political prisoner turned ethnologist (Bronislaw Pilsudski), and a Roman Catholic priest (Maksymilian Maria Kolbe). In many of their accounts, Japan was presented as an example of successful modernization, where Western and Eastern values co-existed in a supposedly harmonious manner.