Problém nacionalismu a institucionalizace polského teozofického hnutí v Československu po roce 1918

Abstract

This study deals with the intermingling of nationalism with spiritual esoteric trends, especially in the environment of the workers of the Ostrava industrial agglomeration, where the spiritualist movement found a strong application at the beginning of the twentieth century. Particular attention is paid to the development in Těšín Silesia, part of which is part of the industrial agglomeration. In this ethnically mixed area, Spiritism originally brought together members of both Polish and Czech nationalities. Czechs and Poles were united by their reservations about the Catholic Church, which they perceived as a backward institution linked to the ruling Habsburg dynasty. After the creation of Poland and Czechoslovakia, Silesia became the subject of a border dispute between the two newly created states. Some Polish esotericists, disgusted by the involvement of the spiritualist movement in the political agitation against Poland, founded their own organisation – the Polish Theosophical Society in Těšín Silesia. The departure of part of the membership base resolved not only political disputes within the esoteric scene, but also older ideological tensions about its future spiritual direction. After the division of Těšín in the summer of 1920 between Czechoslovakia and Poland, the Polish Theosophical Society was newly constituted in the Czechoslovakia as a minority, national and religious community. Its leading personality was Andrzej Kajfosz (1889–1970).