New Poland in the New World

Abstract This paper discusses the project of creating a Polish colony in the United States, propagated by Józef Alfons Potrykowski and a group of his followers. In 1843–1853, seeing no possibility of preserving Polishness in Europe, they strove to establish a New Poland ( Nowa Polska ) in North America or Australia. Initially it was to be a single colony, but Potrykowski’s blueprint projected its development and the creation of an entire Polish province that would eventually join the United States as an autonomous state. In propounding such solutions, Potrykowski was under the tangible influence of the early socialists, and for this reason he stressed the necessity of building the colony upon such principles as equality and brotherhood. From a conceptual point of view, his project was based on categories of both a universal and particular character, with such paired (counter)concepts as sacrifice-treason, or brotherhood-egoism coming to the fore. Whilst Potrykowski’s plans bore scant fruit in terms of their practical realisation, they nevertheless offer valuable insights into East Central European utopianism in the mid-nineteenth century.