Aryans and Turanians. Franciszek H. Duchiński’s views on race and civilization

Abstract

The article deals with a theory of non-Slavic origins of Russians. This theory was authored by Franciszek Duchinski (1816-1893) who claimed that civilizational specifity of Russians stems from their racial origin that is different from the origin of the remaining European nations. He believed that because of this fact, two opposing civilizations emerged: the eastern civilization created by the Mongolian root, with a lack of rule of law and domination of despotism, and the western civilization existing among the Indoeuropean peoples who respected freedom and human dignity. Duchinski was convinced that the two civilization differed one from another most of all due to several external and mental factors instead of biological discrepancies. He did not evaluate races and civilizations as better or worse, and he did not giva a definion of the notion of race. This unprecise attitude was characteristic of the 19th century writings. Such notions as “race”, “nation”, “tribe”, or “clan”, were used interchangeably. Moreover, racial hierarchy was not considered as something improper.

Duchinski’s views on the Asian despotism on the whole agreed with those abiding in the Polish writings in the 19th century, with dominating opinions that Russia and Europe represented different civilizations and were in a permanent antagonism. Duchinski’s aim was to warn Western European community that East is a threat to the West and he wanted to demonstrate that Poland had a role to play for the Latin Christianity.

His conclusions about the antynomy of civilizations are still valid even though today we tend to deny that race and civilization are interconnected. Now civilizational identity is seen first of all in a variety of different values, beliefs, institutions and social structures. Thus, one should agree with Duchinski that civilizations are indeed different but we still should avoid to evaluate them as better or worse.