Prometheism

Prometheism or Prometheanism (Polish: Prometeizm) was a political project initiated by Józef Piłsudski, a principal statesman of the Second Polish Republic from 1918 to 1935. Its aim was to weaken the Russian Empire and its successor states, including the Soviet Union, by supporting nationalist independence movements among the major non-Russian peoples that lived within the borders of Russia and the Soviet Union.[1]

Between the World Wars, Prometheism and Piłsudski's other concept, that of an "Intermarium federation", constituted two complementary geopolitical strategies for him and for some of his political heirs.[2]

  1. ^ Richard Woytak, "The Promethean Movement in Interwar Poland", East European Quarterly, vol. XVIII, no. 3 (September 1984), pp. 273–278.
  2. ^ "Pilsudski hoped to build not merely a Polish nation state but a greater federation of peoples under the aegis of Poland which would replace Russia as the great power of Eastern Europe. Lithuania, Belorussia and Ukraine were all to be included. His plan called for a truncated and vastly reduced Russia, a plan which excluded negotiations prior to military victory." Richard K. Debo, Survival and Consolidation: The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, 1918–1992, Google Print, p. 59, McGill-Queen's Press, 1992, ISBN 0-7735-0828-7.