Andrzej Towiański was one of the most important people of the XIX century Polish humanities. The legend of the expatriate community after the uprising, the patron of its spiritual rebirth and new religiousness, which was supposed to renew Christian Europe.
Past literature of the subject focuses on Andrzej Towiański himself while his views seem to remain in the shadow. Therefore one should translate master Andrew’s thoughts into the modern language of concepts, show the spirit of his views in the language of the XXI century.
One should not appear because of untimely moment in history. It concerns basic truths, which are not surprising for anybody today, such as the proposal of making politics moral following evangelical rules in international relationships, in other words belief in the ability of a man to change the nature of the world.
My dissertation presents main assumptions of the doctrine on the basis of Andrzej Towiański’s works. One tried to show the Master’s thoughts, who was interested in all aspects of life. He used to talk with people not only about religious issues but also about every day activities such as bringing up children, the role of music and art, relations between people.
One of parts presents roots of Towiański’s thought and the intellectual and cultural atmosphere at the turn of XVIII and XIX centuries. It also attempts to show the fact that it developed from the basis of the epoch. The ideas of Jacob Boehme, Emanuel Swedenborg, Louis-Claude Saint Martin, Cloude Saint-Simon, Gotthold E. Lessing, Tadeusz Grabianka are also mentioned here. Towiański familiarised himself with them thought Freemasonry and crusaders.
The comparison of analogous thoughts of A. Towiański and Soren Kierkegaard, who worked in 1840s, gives interesting information about spiritual and intellectual needs of people of those times regardless of nationality and religion.
The next chapter deals with Towiański’s attitude towards Church. It shows to what extent the prophet from Lithuania was an orthodox catholic and a heretic. The chapter also tries to change the definition of ortodoxy and heresy in recent epochs.
This part also tries to describe Towiański’s attitude towards dogma and church liturgy. It pays attention to the fact how Towiański perceived infidels, which in XX century was defined as ecumenism.
The next chapter presents the press from that period. Magazines such as ‘Demokrata Polski’, ‘Pszonka’, ‘Trzeci Maj’, ‘Dziennik Narodowy’, ‘Przegląd Poznański’ give account of impressions and opinions about towianism in the period of the most intensive Master’s activity in 1840s and 1850s.
Finally the author follows the steps of people connected with towianism in Siberia. Michał Janik was the only person who analysed it over seventy years ago. Interestingly, following up the trails we encounter such people as St. Rafał Kalinowski and indirectly John Paul II.
The present doctoral dissertation is an attempt to analyse again the social and religious thought of Andrzej Towiański from the perspective of the XXI century man.
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