Page:Russian Realities and Problems - ed. James Duff (1917).djvu/121

 the country throughout the second half of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century.

The same elements gave national strength to Posen which found itself in a very dangerous situation under Prussian rule. That part of Poland participated in the reforming movement of the eighteenth century as well as in the life of the Duchy of Warsaw, while Galicia, annexed by Austria at the first partition (1772), stood apart during the period of the greatest activity of Polish thought.

Thus it happened that the weakest part of the national body, Austrian Poland, lived throughout the last fifty years in conditions most favourable to the progress of national culture, which it needed most. But, on the other hand, being the poorest part of Poland, with the densest agricultural population, it found itself in very difficult economic conditions, had no chance of industrial development, and was exploited by other more advanced countries of the Hapsburg monarchy. Nevertheless, the existence of national institutions and Polish schools raised the level of intellectual life and strengthened the national spirit. Galicia has in the most recent times been less and less Austrian, and Polish ideals have dominated the political life of that province more and more.

In the last century the greatest danger threatened the national existence of German Poland, exposed as this country was to the direct attacks of Germanism carried out methodically by the Government with the collaboration of the German nation. To Prussia the destruction of Polish nationality in her Polish provinces presented itself as a national necessity. With